Web hosting Custom Email SiteBuilder

The Empire Strikes Back Interview Nov 1998:

Why is Ewan McGregor such a big deal? It's not just about looks and
likability. The twenty-seven-year-old Scot has become a movie star by doing
something a lot of his sticky, attitudinizing, careerist peers put low on
their list of priorities: He acts

In the two years since Ewan McGregor played the heroin-racked Mark Renton in
Trainspotting, he has become the most popular British actor of his generation.
The reasons are not obscure. Cocky but unthreatening, soft-featured males have
become movie stardom's greatest currency in the postmachismo '90s. McGregor's
ascent parallels that of Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon, actors whose
maleness is emphasized, not diluted, by traditionally feminine traits like
gentleness and passivity.

McGregor is more than a type, however. He acts with a refreshing lack of sturm
und drang, shtick, or self-regard, and his effects are both minimal and
effortless - the furrowed brow, the sly or incredulous gaze, the huge grin,
the casual exposure of heart and loins. He is equipped with neither the
tortured genius of Daniel DayLewis, the fertile self-consciousness of Gary
Oldman, nor the high-strung hauteur of Ralph Flennes, but he has something of
the young Albert Finney's playfulness. One of his greatest assets is that he's
invariably pleasing, whether he's being smug (Shallow Grave, 1994), swallowed
by a toilet (Trainspotting), embossed with ink (The Pillow Book, 1996), a
popinjay (Emma, 1996), or a working-class lad (Brassed Off, 1997). His
eclectic choices - including several small roles in ensemble pieces - are
those of a devout actor rather than a careerist. How much longer, though, will
he be tempted to play dreamers? The test of McGregor's range will surely come
when he is asked to espouse authoritarianism or evil, but it won't be in next
year's Star Wars: Episode 1, in which he steps into Alec Guinness's shoes as
the young Obi-Wan Kenobi.

While in drama school, McGregor got a vital break when he was cast in Dennis
Potter's miniseries Lipstick on Your Collar (1993) as a war-office clerk who
gets through the Suez Crisis by fantasizing about being a rock 'n' roll
crooner. This month, in Todd Haynes's elam rock memorial Velvet Goldmine, he
takes rook theater to a different level with his ballistic portrayal of
American protopunk Curt Wild, a thinly veiled Iggy Pop. It's McGregor's most
primal performance yet - and his bitterest. He is currently taking a break
from movies to appear onstage in the Hampstead Theatre Club's production of
Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs, directed by his uncle and
occasional mentor, the actor Denis Lawson. He can next be seen onscreen as a
sweet, gormless pigeon fancier enamored of Jane Horrock's closet diva in the
December release Little Voice, it's another role for the twenty-seven-year-old
Scot that is more about acting than ambition.

GRAHAM FULLER: Have you ever fantasized about being a rock star?

EWAN MCGREGOR: Always, so Velvet Goldmine was an opportunity to get it out of
my system. Of course, it didn't work. I thought it would expel the rock 'n'
roll demons, but it just put more of them in me.

GF: What did you know of elam rock going in?

EM: I was born in '71 so I remember bits of glam rock on Top of the Pops
toward the late '70s, but I had no idea what kind of world it was. I didn't
like the music much. Not particularly fond of it now, either, except for Iggy
Pop's stuff. I think the sound was specific to the era and I kind of didn't
get it. Nor did I understand why they were wearing all those strange clothes.
I certainly didn't listen to hours and hours of glam rock to get into the
part.

GF: Did Todd Haynes tell you that the inspiration for Curt Wild and Brian
Slade [played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers] was specifically Iggy Pop and David
Bowie, or was that an assumption you were left to make for yourself?

EM: Whether the love story is their story or not, I have no idea. Simply in
terms of a British glam superstar, it's clear who Brian Slade is. Curt is made
up of bits of different American rock stars, so he's more general. None of
this was a secret.

GF: How conscious were you of playing Curt as Iggy?

EM: My look - with that long, bleached-blond hair - and certainly what I did
onstage was Iggy. I looked at film of him performing to get that mad
physicality. I also looked at tapes of Lou Reed, and Robbie Robertson in The
Last Waltz to try and get that fucked-up, groggily rock 'n' roll voice.

The way it reads in the script, Curt has to come out with a bang when Brian
Slade and the audience see him for the first time. After a couple of
rehearsals my lungs were coming out and when I got up to do the first take, I
was worded I wasn't going to make it through the number because I'm not very
fit. But as soon as the camera started turning, I stopped worrying because
this mad stuff started happening. I guess from watching Iggy Pop I'd sensed
what kind of state he gets into; it's like something's inside him and he's got
to shake it out of himself. And if he falls over, he doesn't even recognize
it; he just gets up and carries on. That's what I felt like, too.

GF: It looks like you went into a different space.

EM: Oh, I completely lost it. I didn't have a clue what was going on until
they said cut, and then I was going, "Whoa!" I'll never, ever forget what it
felt like.

GF: Iggy would cut himself with razors onstage or smash the mike into his
teeth, and there were rumors of blow jobs - given and received. How far did
you think you'd be able to go in a movie?

EM: He always had his cock out. He's very fond of his penis, I think; I'm
rather fond of mine, too. It made sense to me that he'd always be whipping it
out. There were only four hundred extras there when I did it, so it was a
different ball game. But to stand there with your trousers around your ankles,
there's something about it . . . I don't know quite what, but it didn't feel
at all out of place. It was a powerful feeling, in fact. Todd had written in
the script that Curt turns around and moons the audience. I'd seen Iggy Pop do
this thing where he stood stock-still, staring at the audience with his hands
down the front of his trousers. And then he started to jig about and his
trousers fell down as he was dancing around. I thought I'd do that but I ended
up pulling my willy around and sticking my head between my knees. I had no
idea that was going to happen and the camera crew certainly didn't. I'll never
forget their faces after the first time.

GF: Do you have views on what the film's got to say about sexuality?

EM: It's about freedom, isn't it? And being yourself, and being even more than
yourself, and just going for it. But the film displays a debauched and selfish
time and it leaves you with a sour taste in your mouth because so many of the
people end up dead or fucked-up or unhappy or lost. Perhaps that's irrelevant,
though. I watched this documentary about a photographer [Nan Goldin] of the
New York gay scene in the '70s and '80s. She said she took photographs because
otherwise she wouldn't remember where she'd been, so they were like her
pictorial memory. Then when AIDS kicked in, her photographs went from being a
record of the massive, happy energy of that scene into memories of her friends
dying. In a way, Velvet Goldmine's like that. I still don't know why people
are so reluctant to talk about the '70s. What was going on that we were
running away from? Look at film of Ziggy Stardust onstage - how can there be
any doubt about what image David Bowie was trying to convey? And why shy away
from it now?

GF: Bowie has always woven his way between categories because he wants to be
unknowable; he's too smart to be pinned down. I suspect it's because he wants
to preserve some mystery. That's why he killed off Ziggy onstage in 1973,
before he became a self-parody, which is exactly what Brian Slade does become
in Velvet Goldmine. The Ziggy movie Bowie's planning could contradict all
that, of course.

EM: Is he going to play Ziggy himself? [laughs] Could be weird. It should be
some new guy.

GF: I hear Velvet Goldmine was a tough shoot.

EM: I only did four weeks on it and I'm quite glad about that because I might
have gone over the edge to rock stardom. Also, we worked insane hours. Making
movies gets more and more like that, and I despise it for the crew's sake. We
were fucked around right and left on this one. The finished movie really works
and that reminds you it doesn't always have to feel rosy when you're doing it.
Producing good stuff can be quite tough and it involves a lot of frustration,
but I always like things to be jolly and happy, and I forget that's actually
not the point at the end of the day.

GF: Are people treated badly on movie sets in your experience?

EM: Such shite goes on. Producers blatantly fuck over the crews. Maybe I'm
naive and should just get used to it. I saw an interview with James Cagney,
and he was talking about the old Hollywood days. He said, "We were shooting
thirteen, fourteen hours a day, six days a week, and it was just getting too
much." I was like, "Fucking hell, James. That sounds like an easy life to me."
A sixteen-hour day is normal these days. But how can crews be expected to work
sixteen hour days with no overtime and then have to pack up and drive two
hours home? And then they're expected to be bright and breezy and supportive
the next morning. I find the more I do the more I need to be involved with the
crew - I need them to be there with me. If I've got to do something really
difficult or risky with half of them hanging onto the light stands, it's
impossible. So I'm using what clout I've got to do something about it if I
think they're being badly treated. We actually lost a lighting crew on Velvet
Goldmine, three weeks in. I don't quite know why, though I don't think they
liked that we were filming men fucking each other up the arse on a rooftop in
Kings Cross. God, I'm sounding really jaded now. I don't want to appear that
way.

GF: Are you jaded?

EM: No, but I've had enough of making movies for a while. It got to the point
where they'd come to call me on set and I'd buckle under, and I don't want it
to be like that. Working on films back-to-back, I began to find I was losing
myself to the extent that I'd completely forgotten what it was like to get up
in the morning and sit and watch the telly. And I didn't have a bath for two
years because I didn't have a fucking tub. I try not to moan about it because
it's unusual for an actor to be in so much work, but it does bring its own
pressure. The worst part of it is that I haven't been able to develop the same
kind of relationship that my wife [Eve] has developed with our daughter
[Clara]. She's only a wee one and I usually only get to see her when she's
asleep. So I've been taking a break recently and it's been good to get that
relationship back.

GF: How was the Star Wars experience?

EM: It was a mixture of exciting and boring. Every day there'd be a few
moments where I would go, "Fuck, we're doing Star Wars." But it was also a
tedious film to make. There's not a lot of psychological stuff going on when
you're acting with things that aren't actually there.

GF: Was it bizarre playing Obi-Wan Kenobi?

EM: Very weird. The Jedi Knights have got a sense of what's going to happen,
so they don't freak out or panic or anything. But after a while I noticed the
only thing I was doing was frowning a lot. That's a worry when you shoot for
three-and-a-half months.

SF: Did you encounter the Hollywood machinery?

EM: No, because most of George Lucas's people are based in San Francisco and
didn't get involved - I liked them for that. I used to bang on a lot about how
disgusting it is that massive amounts of money are spent on movies and then I
took a part in Star Wars. Never mind. But what I want to do in the future is
more films like Velvet Goldmine and Little Voice because I think they're
better films than most of the big ones. The less money you have, the more
exciting the work is.

GF: Is it important for you to stay in touch with the original impulse you had
to be an actor?

EM: Yeah, but it's almost impossible. With everything you end up doing, you go
somewhere else. I still have a passion for acting, but some of it was
beginning to disappear, which is another reason why I'm taking a break right
now. I felt I was getting a bit lazy. I've never found acting that difficult.
If you ask me, it's all rather easy if you keep it simple. But as soon as you
lose that original drive, it's not fun. That's why I'm returning to the stage,
I want to remember what it's like to be really frightened again. The fear of
being crap is always what makes you good, I think, Then when I get back into
films, I'll go at it hammer and tongs.

GF: Is it possible to say what all this has done to the inside of your head?

EM: It's quite confusing. Success is tricky to deal with, both professionally
and in your personal life. At the same time I still want more of it so I can
sit there and see myself come up onscreen. I can never quite believe it's me
up there and I can't quite describe how good it feels, even if it's not a very
good film. It's in my dreams and there it is.

One month later . . .

GF: Of all the films you've done, the one that reverberates in people's minds
is Trainspotting, which was funny and exciting but didn't gloss over the
misery of junkiedom. Was playing Renton in that film important to you?

EM: He was like a Christmas present. It was the kind of part you only get once
in a while. I'd been waiting for him to come along and when I read the script,
I thought, Well, here he is - here he comes. For months beforehand, I thought
about nothing else, and 1 threw myself into it 100 percent and played him with
a passion.

GF: I'm curious to know how much you identified with him - I don't mean as a
junkie, but as a young, urban Scot. There's that scene in the movie when
Renton and his friends take a train to the edge of the Highlands, and Renton
trashes the image of Scotland that's marketed to tourists, that whole tartan
thing.

EM: Yeah. Shortbread.

GF: Is that how you feel about it, too? I know you go back to Scotland a lot.

EM: In the movie that's just a bunch of angry guys who don't want to be in the
countryside, who don't want to do anything or be anything really, I can
understand their sentiment that it's shite being Scottish because we're ruled
by England, but maybe that's changing now - I don't know.

I love Scotland. It's so much a part of who I am. My parents and family live
up there so I naturally want to visit a lot. I miss the land and the people
when I'm away. We're quite a proud race, and I'm as proud as anyone to be
Scottish.

GF: It's heartening to see you in Little Voice, which is a tiny English movie
with more life in it than most of the movies I've seen this year.

EM: Mark Herman directed me before in Brassed Off. I was impressed with what
he did with that film, and I think it was an important film for Britain to see
because of the way it showed the mining communities being torn apart. I was
worried that Miramax might slaughter the politics in it and turn it into a
love story, which, to their credit, they didn't. I also liked playing in an
ensemble like that. Little Voice was the same kind of idea, and there was a
fantastic wee part in it for me.

GF: You're happy playing ordinary guys?

EM: I'll play anyone or anything.

GF: A lot of movie stars only play heroes.

EM: I see my job as very simple: I have to pretend to be different people. So,
to make it interesting and to live up to my job description, I should pretend
to be different people all the time. They must never fall into the same
category. And because I'm an actor, it's not about me. If I was worried about
my image, or if I was always playing somebody who saves hostages from
airplanes, I wouldn't be in this business at all. I'm not worried about how I
come across in a film, as long as my character serves the story. I don't care
what people think about me.

GF: How come you've never hired a full-time publicist?

EM: Because I don't like to be in the press. People say you have publicists to
keep you out of the press, which is bullshit. If you want to keep out of the
press, just don't speak to them. There are actors everywhere. a lot of them in
Hollywood, who instead of pursuing good acting and good films thrive on being
in magazines and making sure they're in the right ones and at the right
parties with the right people; in fact, that seems to be what Hollywood
thrives on as a whole. I've always detested that side of the business. I've
worked with too people who find the acting part of it slightly boring, but
they do it because it's the part that allows them to become famous. For me,
the magazines and the photo shoots are the boring parts of my job that allow
me to be on set doing my work.

I've had to hire a friend to handle the publicity for me when Star Wars comes
out next year because I know that that's going to be a major one. On the
whole, though, I've never really understood what press agents do. They charge
you quite a lot of money, and I'm reluctant to give anyone my money. [laughs]
It's the same argument with managers: What do they do? It seems they're there
to book theater tickets for actors, and I can book my own. They want 15
percent, then your publicist wants 15, and it all adds up. I just think
they're leeches and I can do without them.

GF: So it's acting and nothing else?

EM: I'm not saying some of the other stuff isn't fun. But the biggest kick I
get out of my job is to be on set when the camera's turning. That's the most
exciting thing in the world for me. I always find it frightening walking on a
carpet with banks of photographers on either side. That's just part of the
machinery that's selling your image to make money for the film. People get
carried away with that because everybody's really fascinated by movie stars.
They think they're all fantastic human beings. See, in my experience, most of
them aren't. [laughs]

Back to main articles page