Ewan McGregor
Ewan Gordon McGregor OBE (/ˈjuːən/ YOO-ən;[1] born 31 March 1971) is a Scottish actor. His accolades include a Golden Globe Award and a Primetime Emmy Award. In 2013, he was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his services to drama and charity.[2]
Ewan McGregor
- United Kingdom
- United States
Actor
1992–present
-
Eve Mavrakis(m. 1995; div. 2020)
5
Denis Lawson (uncle)
While studying drama at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, McGregor began his career with a leading role in the British series Lipstick on Your Collar (1993).[3] He gained stardom for starring as drug addict Mark Renton in Trainspotting (1996) and as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999–2005). His career progressed with starring roles in the musical Moulin Rouge! (2001), action film Black Hawk Down (2001), fantasy film Big Fish (2003), and thriller Angels and Demons (2009). He gained praise for his performances in the thriller The Ghost Writer (2010) and romantic comedy Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011).
McGregor made his directorial debut with the crime film American Pastoral (2016), in which he also starred. For his dual role as brothers Ray and Emmit Stussy in the third season of the anthology series Fargo (2017), he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film. He voiced Lumière in Beauty and the Beast (2017), and played the title role in Christopher Robin (2018), Dan Torrance in Doctor Sleep (2019), and Black Mask in Birds of Prey (2020). He reprised his role as Kenobi in the 2022 miniseries Obi-Wan Kenobi, and won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for his portrayal of fashion designer Halston in the miniseries Halston (2021).[4]
McGregor has also starred in theatre productions of Guys and Dolls (2005–2007) and Othello (2007–2008). He has been involved in charity work and has served as an ambassador for UNICEF UK since 2004.
Early life[edit]
McGregor was born on 31 March 1971 in Perth, Scotland, and was raised in nearby Crieff.[5][6][7][8] His mother, Carol Diane (née Lawson), is a retired teacher at Crieff High School and latterly deputy head teacher at Kingspark School in Dundee.[9][10] His father, James Charles Stewart "Jim" McGregor, is a retired physical education teacher and careers master at the independent Morrison's Academy in Crieff.[11][12][13] He has an older brother, Colin (born 1969), a former Tornado GR4 pilot in the Royal Air Force.[14] His uncle is actor Denis Lawson[3][15] and his aunt by marriage was actress Sheila Gish, which makes him a step-cousin of Gish's actress daughters, Kay Curram and Lou Gish.[16]
In September 2020, after travelling through Chile for his motorcycle documentary Long Way Up, he revealed that one of his great-grandfathers, John “Juan” Charles McIndoe, was born in Chile to Scottish parents while his father worked with the American engineers in the construction of the railways at the end of the 19th century. Later, John McIndoe went to Glasgow and worked as a wine importer and diplomat. For his education McGregor attended Morrison's Academy. After leaving school at the age of 16, he worked as a stagehand at Perth Theatre and studied a foundation course in drama at Kirkcaldy College of Technology,[17][18] before moving to London to study drama at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama when he was 18 years old.[3]
Personal life[edit]
McGregor married Eve Mavrakis, a French-Greek Jewish production designer whom he met on the set of Kavanagh QC, in 1995.[60][61][62][63][3] Together they have four daughters, two of them adopted, one a street child from Mongolia he met while travelling in Long Way Round.[5][64][65][66] With his children raised in Mavrakis's Jewish faith, McGregor said in 2016, "My involvement in religion has more to do with the Jewish faith now and not the Christian faith, which I was very vaguely brought up in."[67] McGregor has a heart and dagger tattoo of the names of Mavrakis and their daughters on his right arm.[24][68] On 19 January 2018, having been separated since May 2017, McGregor filed for divorce from Mavrakis, citing irreconcilable differences;[69][70] the divorce was finalised on 13 August 2020.[71]
In May 2017, McGregor began a relationship with American actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead, whom he met on the set of Fargo.[72] Their son, Laurie, was born in June 2021.[73][74] McGregor and Winstead married in April 2022.[75]
McGregor divides his time between Los Angeles, California,[76] and St John's Wood, London.[77] He is also a fan of English football team Manchester City.[78]
McGregor is involved in charity work, including UNICEF UK since 2004 and GO Campaign. During the Long Way Round journey in 2004, McGregor and his travelling companions saw some of UNICEF's work in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia,[56] and during the Long Way Down trip in 2007, he and Charley Boorman did some work for UNICEF in Africa. McGregor hosted the annual Hollywood gala for the GO Campaign in 2009 and 2010. He has worked with the Children's Hospice Association Scotland, as featured in Long Way Down. In 2012, he travelled with UNICEF immunization workers to remote parts of India, Nepal and the Republic of Congo for a BBC2 documentary entitled Ewan McGregor: Cold Chain Mission.[79] In June 2015, McGregor read Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Match Girl" for the children's fairy tales app GivingTales in aid of UNICEF, together with other prominent figures such as Sir Roger Moore, Stephen Fry, Dame Joan Collins, Joanna Lumley, and Sir Michael Caine.[80]
In 2007, on an episode of Parkinson, McGregor said he had been a teetotaller for the last seven years. He also mentioned this in an interview with the Irish Independent in 2008, stating that he would often turn up to sets drunk or hungover in the late 1990s, and that he decided to stop altogether to avoid spiralling down further.[81]
In 2008, McGregor had a cancerous mole removed from below his right eye.[82]
In September 2020, after travelling through Chile for the documentary Long Way Up, he revealed that one of his great-grandfathers, John “Juan” Charles McIndoe, was born in Chile to Scottish parents while his father worked with the American engineers in the construction of the railways at the end of the 19th century. Later, John went to Glasgow and worked as a wine importer and diplomat.[83][84]
Political views[edit]
McGregor was an outspoken critic of Brexit. Although opposed to Scottish independence from the United Kingdom in the 2014 Scottish referendum, McGregor later declared during an interview that he would have voted for independence if he had been able to cast his vote the day after the United Kingdom left the European Union.[85] In 2020 he voiced his support for Scottish independence, saying that "it's time".[86][87][88] McGregor became a naturalised US citizen after 2016 so he would be able to vote in the 2020 US presidential election.[89] During his journey on Long Way Up, he travelled entirely on his US passport.[90]
In October 2023, McGregor signed an open letter of Artists4Ceasefire during the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.[91]
In the media[edit]
McGregor was ranked number 36 on Empire magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list in 1997.[92] In a 2004 poll for the BBC, he was named the fourth most influential person in British culture.[93][94] IndieWire named McGregor one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination.[95]