Ewan Mcgregor
Ewan Gordon McGregor, OBE (/ˌjuːən məˈɡrɛɡər/; born 31 March 1971)[1] is a Scottish actor who has had success in mainstream, indie, and art house films. His first professional role was in 1993, when he won a leading role in the Channel 4 series Lipstick on Your Collar.[2] He is best known for his roles as heroin addict Mark Renton in the drama Trainspotting (1996), the young Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999–2005), poet Christian in the musical film Moulin Rouge! (2001), and Dr. Alfred Jones in the romantic comedy-drama Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011). He received Golden Globe nominations for Best Actor – Musical or Comedy for both Moulin Rouge! and Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.
Telling the story of a group of junkies in Edinburgh, it arrived amid Cool Britannia, when Britpop ruled the airwaves, and introduced an incredible ensemble cast whose careers were ultimately transformed overnight: Robert Carlyle, Ewan Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Kelly Macdonald and, in the lead role, Ewan McGregor.
“At twenty-four, I was in a brilliant youthful, ruling-the-world kind of mood,” explains McGregor, who played the film’s lovable but disreputable skag-obsessed Renton. “I thought everything I was involved in was going to be some huge hit back then, but truthfully, I don’t think that anyone could have predicted just how successful Trainspotting would be today. I mean, it’s still the main thing people ask me about when they come up to me in the street. I really get a sense that it’s possibly the biggest film I’ve done, or definitely the most successful in terms of being in the human consciousness.”
Yet, despite the film’s infectiously entertaining and quick-witted humour Trainspotting has not always been on the receiving end of positive press. In fact for many years after its release, it was routinely condemned, forever at the centre of debates for its apparent attractive and sexy allure of glorifying drug use. “I’ve never believed that,” an authoritative McGregor proclaims. “The story is right there in front of your eyes to see and there’s a great deal of grief and terrible shit going on in it.
"There’s something very vibrant about it and something charming about these characters. Yeah, there’s moments in the early scenes when they’re taking drugs and they look like they’re having the time of their lives, but that’s because it is the time of their lives. In a way it’s because they haven’t really got anything else, that’s why people take drugs and why people become addicted to them. It’s an escape, and it’s an escape in their case because of poverty and hopelessness. So to not show that side of it, that moment of high they we’re trying to reach, that wouldn’t be the whole story. Maybe people just don’t like the mix of that stylised look and the subject matter, but I think ultimately it doesn’t matter. The film’s not saying ‘taking heroin is great’, and there’s just no question really; we’re not showing a happy way of life.”