Obi-Wan Exposed Star Wars Insider December 2003

Ewan McGregor: Ready 4 Anything The Jedi Knight talkes Star Wars Edgy Characters, and Nude Scenes by Gabriela Tscharner-Patao

He's played a Jedi and a junkie, a soldier and a singer, a philosopher and a playboy. As an actor, Ewan McGregor is versatile and unpredictable, a star with an edge. "Choosing my roles, I always go by instinct," he says. The director attached to a project or McGregor's potential co-stars do not influence his decision. "I couldn't care less. It's the script or the style of a movie that attracts me. The best director in the world can't make a good movie out of a bad script." The Star Wars movie style must have attracted McGregor since scripts for all the Star Wars prequels are guarded like the gold in Fort Knox. Just a couple of weeks before he was heading off to Australia for Episode III, the actor still hadn't seen one line of dialogue. Goerge Lucas told him that the script wasn't finished. "Only when I first had to decide if I wanted to be part of the prequels, I was shown a script. But since I've said yes to Star Wars, I have no more choice in the matter. I usually don't see any dialogue or storylines until I get to my first shooting location." \When we met with McGregor he already sported a full beard, and his hair was bleached blond. Despite these preparations, he still had no clue as to what would await his character when filming began. "I hear that me and Hayden will have some big kickoff fight," he jokes. "But until some fan told me about it, I didn't even know Chewbacca was back."

This is the last time McGregor is planning to slip into Obi-Wan Kenobi's robe. In the beginning, it took the actor a while to find his footing in a role that was originally shaped by Sir Alec Guinness. He copied the screen legend's speech patterns and transformed the character from a Padawan in The Phantom Menace into the stern teacher and mentor of Anakin Skywalker in Attack of the Clones. Even though McGregor sometimes expressed his frustration with filming in front of a blue screen, the actor is happy to be in the films that ultimately will become classics. "I like when kids approach me and want to know everything about Star Wars. I remember when I was that way about the first three myself." Growing up he watched his uncle Denis Lawson playing Luke's wingman Wedge Antilles in the original trilogy. Today, McGregor is glad he's leaving a legacy for his kids to watch. "My uncle inspired me to act, and I'm glad I've now made movies to show my kids. A lot of my other films are for a bit more mature audience," he laughs.

Lemonade, No Chaser: During the interview, McGregor seems restless. A pitcher with a pink liquid absorbs his whole concentration. "What is in there?" he asks. Without waiting for an answer, he picks up the pitcher, brings it up to his nose, sniffs, and grins in relief: "It's pink lemonade." McGregor gave up drinking alcohol after he finished Attack of the Clones. "There wasn't a specific indcident or moment that caused me to turn my life around after Episode II. I no longer enjoyed the drinking, and yet I found myself doing a lot of it," he says. "It got to a point where I wasn't able to just have a pint of Guinness, it seemed. "I wanted to be more in control of it, so, it was easier to just cut it out completely. My life since has been a lot clearer and more manageable." He still drinks lots of caffeine and smokes, even though he promised George Lucas that he'd try to quit smoking until they started shooting Episode III. Today, McGregor spilts his time between work and his family. "That's where I have my happiest moments," he admits. He loves leading the life of a dad, bringing his 7 yeard old daughter Clara to school and giving baths to 18 month old Esther. Whever he can, he takes his wife Eve Mavrakis, a Friench production designer he met while working on the TV show Kavanagh QC, and his kids to the localtions of his current film. They had just recently returned from Alabama where he shot Big Fish with Tim Burton and stayed in Los Angeles while he was filming Down With Love, the romantic comedy with Renee Zellweger. "We have Clara enrolled in school everywhere," he says. "It requires a bit of organization, but with enough forewarning, it can be done. She adjusts really easily and has made friends wherever we go."

After he finished shooting Down With Love, which required McGregor to do a shirtless scene, he had the names of his wife and children tattooed on his right upper arm. "Once they cleared me and assured me that I wouldn't have any more towel scenes or shirt off scenes, I went straight to the tattoo parlor," he jokes. He is not worried aobut dealing with the new tattoo in future projects. "These days make-up artists have amazing ways of covering tatoos up." In the beginning, McGregor approached fatherhood with idealism. "I wanted to be the absolute dad from teh get-go, but soon I realized that in the first years of their lives kids need their moms a lot more than they need us. I often felt like an outsider." Since then he has learned a lot about being a father from his first-born. Since the arrival of his second daughte,r he considers himself a much better dad. "The roles my wife aand I have taken are almost traditional. If Clara is stepping out of line for example, it's much more effective if I tell her off than if Eve does it. In my fmaily it works better if the roles are split traditionally in teh McGregor family, does he do any housework? "Of course not. But neither does my wife!" he addes with a laugh. "Let's make that clear. I have someone come in to do that."

Nude, Not Naked: Ewan McGregor was born in 1971, in Crieff, Scotland. While his brother Colin excelled in school and went on to become a fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force, stydying wasn't quite Ewan's forte. When he wanted to leave school to join the Perth Repertory Theatre at the age of 16, his parents supported him. In 1994, an important collaboration between McGregor, director Danny Boyle, and screenwriter John Hodge began with Shallow Grave. Two years later, the trio hit it big with Trainspotting, a brutally honest tale of a group of heroin addicts in Scotland. They went on to make A Life Less Ordinary. In the year 2000, McGregor was originally up for the lead in The Beach, which would have reunited him with his friends, but the role instead wen to Leonardo DiCaprio. Recently he turned down the lead in the Trainspotting sequel, Porno. Although he's had enormous success with big-budgeted Hollywood productions like Moulin Rouge! and Star Wars, the actor continues to play edgy roles in independent films like Peter Greenaway's The Pillow Book or Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine: movies in which McGregor has nude scenes. "It amuses me how big a deal is being made about nudity in films," he grins. "Like most people, in real life I'm often naked. Every day and sometimes even several times a day, I thought films should represent real life." He used to jode about nudity in films as his contribution to the women's movement. After many decades of gratuitous female nude scenes, he wanted to give something back. Today he sees it more as his _expression of artistic freedom. " I don't think the nudity in films like The Pillow Book or Young Adam is gratuitous at all. One is a movie about the naked body, and in the other eroticism plays a big part. If nudity in films were a problem for me, I would have never made some of my films. And that would have bound me artistically."

McGregor used to be very vocal about his disdain for the commercialism of Hollywood. Today his view on Tinseltown seems to have mellowed. "I'm less and less aware of what it is,: he admits. "What used to anger me about the studio system happens everywhere else, too." He recently got very grustrated when he had a hard time getting funding for Young Adam, a small arthouse film with an up and coming Scottish filmmaker and several of Britain's finest actors, including Tilda Swinton and Emily Mortimer. Then he had a very good experience shooting Down With Love in Los Angeles. "I've met some really nice people there. I'd always assumed that it was all just parties and everybody looking over their shoulder. And I'm sure there's a lot of that going on in L.A. But you don't have to be involved in it if you don't choose to be."

Shaken, not Stirred: Recently, Ewan McGregor's name has been mentioned as the successor to Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, but the actor is not sure if he wants to follow up the Star Wars series wit another franchise. “Officially, nobody has approached me about Bond,” he says. “It reminds me of when I was potentially going to be in Star Wars, not knowing whether it was a good idea. I really questioned all the baggage that would come with it. I was afraid I'd be chased down the street by crazed fanatics.” The closer he got to getting the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi, however, the more he wanted to do it. “I've always followed my instincts about such things, so I went for it.” He is relieved that his worst fears haven't been realized. The Star Wars fans he has encountered over the years have been very civilized. “The people are much more interested in it as a film as opposed to who is in it.” He actually loves being approached by kids who want to know everything about the experience of being in Star Wars. “It's fantastic the way children ask you how a lightsaber turns on,” he smiles. “It's only when adults come up to me and ask where they can apply to be a Jedi that I don't get it. They should really know better.” As the Star Wars series comes to an end, McGregor reminisces about the effect the films had on him and his life. “They are huge movies that are seen all over the world,” he marvels. “And still they haven't changed my life at all.” He assumed the series would make him more recognizable as a person and on a professional level, that the films would catapult him up the Hollywood ladder a bit. “That didn't happen at all, which is fine. It hasn't affected my career, either in a negative nor in a positive way.” So, if another blockbuster series like Star War or James Bond were offered to him next, would he be ready? “I've always felt ready for anything,” he says. “I really have. I wouldn't worry about it until I started working on it. If you have any fears about it, that's usually a good thing. It makes you do better work. “