Ewan McGregor
- Profession: Actor
- Place/Date of Birth: Crieff, 31 March 2020
He said: "Most people, and I’m one of them, would run a million miles from a bomb, it’s like, ’Get me away from here’, but Michelle actually walks towards them and makes them safe. Amazing.
"When I was told about her, and was asked to go and present the award to her in Iraq, I said yes because I really wanted to meet her and show my support."
Ewan to make new TV trip - May 16 2007
The BBC is to screen Ewan McGregor’s latest motorcycle odyssey, Long Way Down.
The Trainspotting star and friend Charley Boorman are journeying 15,000 miles from John O’Groats to the southernmost tip of South Africa.
It is a follow-up to their first adventure, Long Way Round, which saw them circumnavigate the globe.
Their latest travels will be turned into a six-part documentary series for BBC Two.
Ewan, 36, said: "Long Way Round changed us all - it bonded us together and made our dreams come true - and it’s not often something like that happens. So to be given another opportunity to do something like this is amazing."
Despite a film career which has included playing Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars films, he claimed: "Long Way Round has become the most popular thing for people I don’t really know to ask me about, more so than any movie."
The duo’s first trip was screened on Sky One and saw the pair navigate dangerous river crossings, negotiate with the Russian mafia and suffer frequent road crashes.
"I can’t imagine not ever thinking about some adventure," Ewan said.
Long Way Round raised over £100,000 for Unicef and Long Way Down will also be undertaken in aid of the charity.
It will last three months and take in 20 countries. The pair set off this weekend and the series will be broadcast in the autumn.
Fans can follow their progress on the website www.bbc.co.uk/longwaydown, where the pair will post travel blogs. Video clips of their travels will be posted on YouTube.
Minimum Equity wage for Ewan - May 13 2007
Ewan McGregor is returning to the stage in a production of Othello at the Donmar Warehouse.
The actor will play Shakespeare’s arch villain Iago while Chiwetel Ejiofor will star in the title role, and Mrs Henderson Presents’ Kelly Reilly will appear as Desdemona.
But while the Hollywood heart-throb commands multi-million pound fees for such roles as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars films, he will be appearing in Othello for the Equity minimum wage of £400 a week.
The 36-year-old was signed up by Donmar Warehouse artistic director Michael Grandage.
The pair have worked together before, on the hit musical Guys And Dolls.
Michael said: "This production of Othello is an exciting culmination of my first five years of work as artistic director. It also launches us into the next stage of our development."
Othello, opening on December 4, will be the final production of the current season at the Donmar’s Covent Garden home.
Previews begin on November 29 and the production will run until February 23 next year.
Low budget drama for Ewan - Mar 15 2007
Ewan McGregor will join Spooks star Matthew Macfadyen for Incendiary, a low budget drama about the aftermath of a suicide bombing.
The 10 million dollar flick is adapted from a novel by Chris Cleave, which tells the tale of a woman whose husband and son are killed during a suicide attack at a football match.
She has to deal with the emotional consequences, while consumed by guilt because she was having an affair.
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He started out at the local Morrison Academy and at the age of sixteen made his way down to the big smoke to train at the Guildhall School. Ewan got an early break thanks to Dennis Potter, who cast him in the critically acclaimed TV show Lipstick on Your Collar in 1993, just before his graduation. The small role got Ewan noticed and soon after leaving Guildhall he was cast in Bill Forsyth’s Being Human.
Ewan wasn’t about to hang around making mediocre movies though. In 1994 he was cast as Alex, one of three lead characters in Danny Boyle’s excellent Shallow Grave, which won a Bafta for Best British Film. His breakthrough came two years later, again thanks to Danny Boyle. Ewan was cast as the lead character, heroin addict Mark Renton, in cult classic Trainspotting. The controversial movie became the seminal nineties film, loved by young people all over Britain while Ewan became British cinema’s hottest property, the film world’s answer to Damon Albarn in a Brit-pop obsessed country.
From then on Ewan made sure he didn’t become stereotyped, taking parts in everything from arty intelligent projects like Peter Greenaway’s The Pillow Book (which helped to cement the reputation of a certain of Ewan’s body parts as a star as...ahem, big as its owner) to costume dramas - Jane Austen’s Emma - to gritty northern dramas such as the critically acclaimed Brassed Off.
By 1997’s A Life Less Ordinary Ewan was a global superstar and was the obvious choice for a role in then biggest movie franchise in history. Ewan’s role as Obi Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequels may not have allowed him to flex his acting muscles but it did send him stratospheric, and while he kept on with the quirky projects such as Big Fish and Moulin Rouge! he was also able to command huge salaries for each appearance and make action blockbusters such as The Island and Stormbreaker as well as costume dramas such as Miss Potter. He is set to appear in Woody Allen’s Cassandra’s Dream and as the devil in I, Lucifer in 2007.
The huge fame that came with these movies also allowed Ewan to branch out with his own projects - notably The Long Way Round, a TV show which saw Ewan and pal Charley Boorman attempt a motorcycle trip from London to New York. As well as plenty of time in front of the camera Ewan, along with Sadie Frost, Jude Law, Sean Pertwee and Jonny Lee Miller, keeps his hand in behind the lens with Natural Nylon a production company owned by the Brit Pack A list.
updated January 2007
Ewan has been married to make up artist Eve Mavrakis since 1995. They met on the set of TV drama Kavanagh QC and now have two daughters Clara Mathilde and Esther Rose. In April 2006 the couple also adopted a four year old girl from Mongolia.
October 2007