Ewan Gordon McGregor was born on March 31, 1971, in the small Scottish
town of Crieff. He attended Morrison Academy until the age of 16, when
he left his hometown of Crieff to gain theatrical experience at Perth
Repertory Theatre. From this point, he moved to London, and trained
at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama for three years. Before graduating
he got an early big break in Dennis Potter’s Lipstick on Your Collar
(1993), a six-part TV series aired on Channel 4. That same year, McGregor
made his feature film debut in Bill
Forsyth's Being Human (1993). McGregor came to public prominence
when cast as Alex, a lippy journalist entangled in a triangle of greed
in Danny Boyle's Shallow
Grave (1994), the film won the BAFTA Alexander Korda Award for Best
British Film. He followed this with an appearance in the lacklustre
surfing flick Blue Juice (1995).
He again teamed up with Danny Boyle to star in his breakthrough film,
an adaptation of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting
(1996), a dramatic look at the dark side of Edinburgh street culture
through the eyes of heroin addict and anti-hero Mark Renton. Next, he
was Nagiko’s lover in Peter Greenaway's
The Pillow Book (1996), and followed this with a leading role in Douglas
McGrath's adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma
(1996). The same year he played Andy in Mark
Herman’s Brassed
Off (1996), portraying a love-struck brass band member facing the
prospect of unemployment. In 1995, McGregor married Eve Mavrakis, a
French production designer he’d met a year earlier whilst working on
TV series Kavanagh QC. He collaborated with director Danny Boyle for
a third time in A
Life Less Ordinary (1997), a hit-and-miss romantic comedy co-starring
Cameron Diaz.
The following year he starred as a debauched glam-rock star in Todd
Haynes Velvet Goldmine
(1998). He also starred in another small-budget British film, Little
Voice (1998), based on a play by Jim Cartwright. He later landed
the role that would guarantee him universal recognition, the young Obi-Wan-Kenobi
in the highly anticipated prequel Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom
Menace (1999). The same year he appeared in two mediocre films, as disgraced
Barings Bank financier Nick Leeson in Rogue
Trader (1999), and an obsessed voyeur in the muddled Eye of the
Beholder (1999). McGregor was seen to greater effect as James Joyce
in Pat Murphy’s Nora
(2000), Natural Nylon, the production company set up by McGregor, Jude
Law, Jonny Lee Miller, Sadie Frost and Sean Pertwee, produced the
film. In Baz Luhrmann’s blockbuster musical Moulin Rouge! (2001), Ewan
portrayed a young writer obsessed by courtesan Nicole Kidman whilst
also singing admirably, the film garnered multiple Academy Award nominations.
His next film was Ridley Scott's military action epic Black Hawk Down
(2001), based on the true shooting down of an American helicopter in
Mogadishu, Somalia. McGregor returned to his Scottish roots to appear
in David Mackenzie's dark and brooding morality tale Young
Adam (2003).
