192: THE 192 Q & A
Sep 26 2003
Ewan McGregor is back. First this week in Scots indie flick Young Adam and then next week in Hollywood romantic comedy Down With Love
Q WOULD you like to be the next James Bond?
A I'M not a Bond fan. I haven't been asked to play Bond, but sometimes I think it would be good, but other times not. I think that every guy would like to be Bond, but think it's maybe a better fantasy than reality. I know that it takes a long time to make those films, because they shoot them all over the world and the action sequences take a long time.
Q YOUNG Adam is very different to Moulin Rouge to Star Wars and most of the other movies you've made recently. Why did you go for it?
A IT is a beautiful combination because it's incredibly dark, erotic piece of work and a phenomenal acting part. It relies on nothing but the performance and itreads like that off the page. It was the first Scottish film I tried for quite a while so that drew me to read it in the first place.
Q YOU are known for bad-mouthing Hollywood, but now you have one Star Wars and a sequel and now Down with Love which is a homage to the old studio movies of the Sixties. Have you changed your mind?
A YES, I have. think I actually have. I was always very vocal about my distain for certain elements of the studio system or Hollywood. I have realised, by experience, that it is very similar everywhere else in different degrees and, as a matter of fact, it is just part of the business.
Q YOU sang in Velvet Goldmine, Moulin Rouge and Down With Love ever thought of making a record?
A I'D love to if it was so simple to just make one. After Moulin Rouge I continued to record songs with the guy who recorded the film and we maybe did two or three more. It was interesting to sort of find my sound.
EWAN McGREGOR TELLS PAUL ENGLISH WHY HE LOVES BIKING OFF INTO THE SUNSET
Paul English
HE is one of the most sought-after actors in the world, one of the bestpaid in the business and flies his family all over the globe to be with him wherever he films.
But sometimes Ewan McGregor just needs to be alone.
Now 32, the Crieff boy still hankers after the open spaces and leafy solitude he knew so well as a young man growing up in Perthshire.
So earlier this year he turned his back on everything, jumped on his Harley Davidson and chased the sunset all the way down Route 66 in the US.
He says: ``I was alone the whole time. There was a stretch of the original Route 66 between Oklahoma and Arizona, about 150 miles, which I did one evening with about two hours of sunlight left I didn't see a soul for ages.''
There's a good chance the wilderness of Perthshire instilled a strong understanding in McGregor of the strength to be taken from being isolated.
He says: ``I love time alone. That's why I love motorcycles. You're on your own and you make your own decisions, unlike films where everything's decided for you. On a bike, you decide when to stop, where to stay. I planned the trip on a map so I'd have some idea of where I'd end up.
``I didn't register under a fake name or anything, I just used my own.''
A motorbike isn't the only mode of transport Ewan had in America. He also bought himself a Porsche Spyder, the same car James Dean died in.
``Yes, but it's a replica, '' he says. ``It's a beautiful car and I was going to take it down to Alabama, but then I decided it'd be better to get a truck down there. Everyone drives trucks there.''
It sounds blissful, being in a position to up sticks, jump on a bike or fast car and head off.
But that's what happens when you're McGregor an actor so hell-bent on providing us with escapism that he's the face of two high profile flicks at the same time. The first, filmed in Scotland, is Young Adam, with Tilda Swinton, Peter Mullan and Emily Mortimer.
It's a dark tale about a man reeling from rejection and looking for love in the wrong places.
It's a fraught, edgy performance and one that sees Ewan get his kit off again.
In his other high profile role he plays Catcher Block in Down With Love, a remake of the Doris Day and Rock Hudson flick, with Rene Zellweger. It's the second time he's played a journalist, having starred as cocky hack Alex in his breakthrough part in Shallow Grave.
The film deals with womanising in a timewhen it was regarded as hip. But he's not baring his bits quite as much.
He says: ``The guy's a complete male fantasy character, but a lot of fun to play.
``It took a bit of getting into, because that kind of womanising is so in the past now, in that sense of shared womanising and the way people in the film are openly talking about their mistresses and so on.
``Back then it was smart. It's a fine line. Why is Sean Connery so sexy and cool in those old Bond films, when they're all quite misogynist and he's slapping women around and kissing them when they didn't want to be kissed, and then they melt? Why does that work?
``So it was a matter of finding a line to tread. And you need to have a bit of swing and zap, which is hard to do, because that kind of acting plays against the grain in terms of how we do it today.''
And, like Alex in Shallow Grave, he could quite easily end up being the kind of character audiences love and hate.
He says: ``This guy could easily be obnoxious. You couldn't get away with that today. What was cool about the film was that we weren't trying to do a 2003 version of a sex comedy.
``It's a '60s version, without any sex because none of them had any sex that was the joke. The only modern thing is that Rene's character turns the genders on their heads, which I don't think would have worked back then.''
He laughs: ``I didn't think of it as a risk,except I had to get it right. You're trying to play comedy as opposed to style, and somehow the comedy's there in the style. But I suppose it was the most obvious comedy I've ever done.
Ewan confesses to being a huge fan of old romantic comedies when he was a child, shunning the cartoons on kids' TV in favour of old Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Cliff flicks.
He says: ``When I was young I was much more interested in watching old films than children's TV, from as early on as I can remember.
``BBC 2 had matinees and must have shown the '60s sex comedies because when I read the script for Down With Love I just got it. I didn't even question it. ``I was so familiar with that style and when the director Peyton Reed came to London and brought a bunch of those old movies to watch, I'd already seen them.''
The split screen scenes in the film show a real sexual frisson between Ewan and co-star Rene Zellweger. He says: ``I did all thehardwork. She shot her scenes first and then I had to match them, so I was doing these push-ups all day for the bit where I'mon top of her. It turned out great but it was a lot of hard work.''
Did the chemistry come naturally or was it faked? He says: ``The truth is, you can fake it when you're not getting on, because often you have to.
``It's happened from time to time in my career where you're not getting on, and not necessarily with your leading lady. But you're an actor. However, it's easier to do it when you are getting on.
``With Rene, I'd met her a couple of times before and there was no question we were like-minded about our work serious and passionate about it I knew we'd work well together.
``And we did, because it was tough to find this style. At first, it went against us in that we don't play comedy like this anymore. It's specifically '60s comedy and some of it felt cheesy.
``Some of it you put on from the outside in, which is the opposite of the way you'd normally work. And you play the comedy, which is not what happens today I found it great fun to play the comedy. So maybe we'll be doing more of it now.
``Had it been a lesser talent than Rene we wouldn't have been able to nail it because it was something I had to find with her for our scenes, and with David for his scenes. You can't drop the ball with this dialogue. It's fast, snappy and beautifully written it read like a dream.''
With this high level of personal interest in the genre, perhaps McGregor was guilty of taking his work home with him.
He says: ``I don't think so. The only time my wife Eve ever said anything about that was when I did Trainspotting.
``I think that's because from the second I read the script till we finished the shoot that's all I could think about.
``That's the only time I can recall her saying I was bringing the character home. I wasn't even aware of it. But I'm not an actor who's burdened by angst I like being able to do it and just walk away.
``Of course, if you spend a whole day dying and crying, like at the end of Moulin Rouge, then it takes you a few hours to get out of those doldrums. But you do.
``I really admire an actor like Daniel Day Lewis, all those stories of him staying in character all day long. He's just one of the greatest actors I've seen. But it must also be extraordinarily draining on him and so intense.
``That's probably why he only makes one movie every five years. But it works for him I felt like giving up after I saw him in In the Name Of The Father.
``I thought I would never be that good and might as well bail out the business.''
Thankfully, he hasn't. Nor has he bailed out of his family life either, despite existing in an industry that is full of temptation.
Has he ever been down on love? ``Never, '' he says. ``It hasn't always gone smooth but I've never been down on it where I didn't believe in it or chose not to.''
Surely it's tricky balancing married life with working so hard all over the world?
He says: ``Because I love my wife and I work with fellow actresses. I've calmed down a lot.
``I'm no longer 25 and tearing around. I'm a husband and have two beautiful children in the normal way that is much more important to me.
``I no longer find happiness with strangers in pubs. I get it at home with my wife and kids. So that's certainly the way my life's changed. I work and then I want to get home to see them.''
After the success of the McGregor and Kidman vocal gymnastics in Moulin Rouge, what are the chances of him heading off into that Route 66 sunset again, with nothing but his banjo and his Harley for company.
A road-trip musical perhaps? He says: `` I'd want to protect Moulin Rouge for a long while it would take an amazingly good script to cap that.''
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