Empire, August 1999

To Infinity and Beyond

Ewan McGregor was never going to Hollywood. Never going to dabble in that mega-movie bunk. Terra firma, that's where the coolest British actor of his generation was staying. Then George Lucas came long and asked him to be Obi-Wan Kenobi. "No" was not exactly an option.
Interview by Ian Nathan
Star Wars changes everything. There'll be no more Soho evenings tripping from pub to club, semi-anonymous in the evening throng. No travelling on late night tubes, convincing himself he's still in touch. This is different. One night, having completed another performance of stageplay Little Malcolm And His Struggle Against The Eunuchs, Ewan McGregor left thorugh the stage door to be confronted with the usual gaggle of devotees.
"Some were there to congratulate me on the play, which was nice," begins McGregor, his voice carrying a weary mix of incredulity and exasperation. "But there are always some who aren't aware I'm doing one. These two had two new lightsaber toys, and one says, in front of everone, 'Can we have a lightsaber fight? Do you want the red one or the green one?' He genuinely asked me to have a lightsaber fight there and then in the street. I said 'Don't be so fuckin' ridiculous'"
   McGregor shakes his head, the endless complexities of human nature seemingly beyond him. Especially the gagging need for some Star Wars freak to partake in a life-defining moment with him, clashing plastic blades in the shadows of a theatre door.
"He really thought I would be up for it," he continues, appealing to good sense. "That is something I just don't understand myself, that's all about him saying to his mates, 'Oh, I had a lightsaber fight with Obi-Wan'. But I'm an actor, I just do my job."
   And the fact of the matter is, at this time, a blustery March afternoon in London, Star Wars Episode I hasn't even opened. It's going to get worse. You can't just do Star Wars. The role of a young, brash Obi-Wan, apprentice Jedi, changes everything.
   It's impossible not to warm to the 28-year-old Ewan McGregor. Despite celebrated tales of laddish largesse, the so-easy flightpath of his rise to considerable fame and the irksome (unsought) role as figurehead of the Cool Britannia back-slapping exercise, there is still a young man in search of integrity, a seeker of truth rather than the ceaseless opportunities for which his position befits him. Today, looking pale and tired (the play's gruelling schedule telling on his youthful spirit) in the sterile confides of London's private Soho House club, he answers questions with an almost brash honesty. His frankness may constantly get him into trouble - his description of the Star Wars process as "utterly tedious" wasn't the greatest PR move with his employer for three whole films - but it is an openness wich speaks volumes about the boy from Crieff, whose well-documented background (not least by this magazine) has led him to such a pinnacle. You never get the impression you are talking to anybody but the Ewan McGregor. Not bloody Obi-Wan.
   Star Wars, as is well-known, is in the blood. Uncle Dennis [sic] Lawson played the small but appreciated role of rebel pilot Wedge Antilles in the original trilogy, but McGregor's initial experience of the phenomenon was much the same as so many other lads of his era.
   "I remember being picked up by my brother from school to go and see it," he recalls, picking his way back through 22 years of expansive history to locate the entrhalled six-year-old. "Standing outside the school with him and then being driven to go and see it - primarily because my uncle was in it, the first film I'd ever seen him in. I don't particularly remember watching it."
   Rose-tinted recollections also reveal the then tyke's unlikely crush on Princess Leian. ("That's quite a big part of it, you know, sex. There is certainly a little bit of my heart that will always belong to her.") But on the whole, there was no childhood fanaticism, just the usual school culture absorptions of Star Wars playground rituals. For the record, he has variously prescribed his childhood wannabe status to Han Solo, Luke Skywalker and a Stormtrooper.
   The family destiny was fulfilled when casting director Robin Gurland, acting on something of a gut instinct, put together a showreel of McGregor screen moments spliced onscreen with early Alec Guinness. Producer Rich McCallum was immediately impressed and a meeting was called.
   "I was eventually called back to meet with the producer and George Lucas," says McGregor of the momentous occasion. "Then we just sat talking about our kids. We were in this suite and they filled me in about the character, which was strange, because everything else was so secretive, yet they told me who the character was and told me a little bit about the movie."
   At no point as it became clear he was to get the role, was he required to attempt an "Alec Guinness", Lucas trusted his instincts.
   "I cast Ewan McGregor primarily because he was right for the part," the bearded wonder stated emphatically ont he most complicated of all his casting choices. "First of all, I looked for really good, talented actors and then I looked for someone who was physically right for the part. I wanted Obi-Wan to have a natre which Alec Guinness had and I wanted him to be strong but also kind of impetuios and impatient with his mentor, and I think Ewan McGregor qualifies in all those areas."
   McGregor was given confirmation of his gaining the role of Obi-Wan while filming Velvet Goldmine in London. Naturally he was ecstatic but his enthusiasm had to be contained beneath the immediate blanket of secrecy that Lucas threw over the whole production. One of the elite few to be allowed access to a complete script, he could tell only his closest compatriots that he had the role of a lifetime. It also threw up the first real question of what exactly he was about to step into.
   "I started to ask people I worked with - my uncle, other directors - whether it was really a good idea in terms of career, 'cause you know how global it's going to be. And how enormous and how fucking scary in case you're shit in it. But also just whether you can carry on afterwards making the films you like to make."
   He was satisfied, though, that there was enough work behind him to allow him to pass beyond the portals of doing a "Mark Hamill" and disappearing up the Khyber of one-hit wonderdom. It is going to take some enormous shift of perception to rid McGregor of Trainspotting's drug-addled antihero Renton, for one thing. And, as he so matter-of-factly sums it up, how the hell do you say "No" when George Lucas asks you to be Obi-Wan Kenobi? More interesting was the young actor's final adoption of "a big Hollywood role". Especially after his very vocal dissing of Independence Day and general Hollywood aesthetic (Jim Carrey, Will Smith and poor Minnie Driver have all engaged the righteous wrath of the Scot). Mind you, there's something altogether different about Star Wars.
   "It's ideal in my opinion," he says, smirking. "It kinda gets all that out of the way, the need to go and be in an American blockbuster. I don't like them really, but his is in such a different league, a league of its own, there's nothing like it. It is the biggest thing that there will ever be, like 85 Independence Days. We'll squash that without a doubt."
   Where is the difference?
   McGregor explodes into mock grinning fury.
   "The difference," he snarls, the full volume of his Crieff burr coming to irascible life, "is that it was a pile of shite. Just a money-making machine and although George Lucas makes an enormous amount of money out of his films, there is a great deal of thought behind his stories. I've never seen anyone so calm on set. I mean, he's directing this huge fucking number. If anybody's arse is on the line it's his and I swear he sees every shot in his head, he knows absolutely every detail."
   Lucas also trails with him a reputation for coldness towards his actors, concerning himself rhather with the technology and the stor, the actors merely puppets for the grand puppeteer. McGregor is understandably diplomatic about his employer, professing a cordial if not close relationship. But when you boast the kind of symbiotic understanding he has with mentor Danny Boyle (and yes, not getting The Beach still bites) and director/actor liaison is going to seem more restrained.
   "He's quite shy, he's a shy guy," he says with that shrugging frankness of his. "And he's just very defensive of his directorial work. He says it himself, 'I do not know how to talk to actors' I like him a lot and I think he's scared of upsetting actors by saying do it this way. And that's just where he falls away 'cause you know you're not gonna go in there and have to ummage around in the inner child of your character or any of that shit. You're gonna play Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're just going to frown and pull out your sword. And that was nice 'cause sometimes he'd just do it better than you."
   Four weeks of training, two-and-a-half weeks of filming the actual movie sequences and McGregor still kept breaking his lightsabers. They were made of a lightwight alloy and some poor bloke would spend all day fashioning new ones, bringing them rond on a tea trolley. Three or four jabs later, especially with the young Obi-Wan's prediction for "really going for it" and there is the unfortunate sight of another bent lightsaber.
   Get McGregor to talk about lightsaber duelling and his eyes light up, his body takes the Jedi poise as he swings and imaginary blade through the air. He'll talk of two-handed fighting, catapulted somersaults and the intense array pf dare-devil theatrics that constructed the climatic showdowne between Jedis Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon Jinn (Neeson) and the extraordinary-looking Sith villain Darth Maul (martial marts guru Ray Park). Their tutor was Nick Gillard, a movie swordsmaster and veteran of the original tirlogy. His remit was to get them to the skill level of actually duelling on film - there were to be no stunt doubles as the camera drew in close to see their grimaces. Episode I was to depict the Jedi in their full glory.
   "The idea was to go back and show what they were really like," says McGregor, "what a force to be reckoned with they were then." And of all the boys being put through their paces, clanging their metal blades (the energy pulse put in later by the efects boys) ferociously at one other, it was McGregor who showed the greatest aptitude, immersing himself in the chance to really life a bit of Star Wars as he growled his own sound effects, endlessly bending his lightsaber through the sheer welly he threw into things. ("Sorry, can we cut - my sword has just turned into a teaspoon.")
   "You got to this point where it was just instinct," he lathers, tightly gripping his imaginary lightsaber. "We all got to a point where we got so fast you couldn't possibly be thinking about what is going to come next." Apparently you were the best.
   McGregor pauses, the boyish delight of the moments clear in his eyes.
   "Yeah, I got to be a bit flash with that. This was the only place where I got to do a bit of twirling and I went off a bit."
   One would expect the playing of a Jedi, the quasi-religious peace-keeping force who traipse about the galaxy fingering their lightsabers, bedecked only in monk-like robes, would require some kind of transcendental Method. Really getting in touch with the spiritual whatever deep inside.
   Not according to the terminally pragmatic McGregor. Frowning was where it was at.
   "Frowning's definitely the way in," he laughs, automatically infusing the Lucas idolatry with his distinct brand of not-taking-this-shit-too-seriously. "The idea of there being a sense of the future, being aware of it. I don't know where it comes from, religion I guess, but a sense of energy. Like alec Guinness says (McGregor switches on a dead cert Guinness impression, half to illustrate his point, half just to prove he bloody can) 'Like a thousand voices crying out, suddenly silenced.' There is a sense of things around you, you're aware of the future slightly. I mean, I tried to put in some humour here or there.... You have to be careful about what's going to happen as you know what's going to happen..."
   McGregor proceeds to tie himself in a philosophical knot around how a Jedi's prophetic abilities affect their day-to-day activities. H stops. Grins. "Don't analyze it too much, just frown a lot, just frown. It's do do with being centred."
   There is no direct Alec Guinness impersonation in The Phantom Menace. McGregor insinuates him. After all, this is a very much younger and brasher Obi-Wan Kenobi, not the weatherworn hermit of Tatooine's sandy wasteland. There is only that physical resemblance and McGregor's swirling burr stiffened into a refined, slyly inflected English accent. Quite how the accent issue applies to George Lucas' thought-of-everything universe is anyone's guess.
   "It's like De Niro doing Brando in the second Godfather," is his modest explanation. "He wasn't doing an impersonation but there was a flavour of it. That's what I've tried to do with the tune of his voice."
   In fact, it's pretty good. There's little jarring between the sexy image of this young rougish Obi-Wan and the silver-haired wizard of the original. You accept it. Credence, then, to Lucas' ability to join the dots.
   The hair, though, was something again. McGregor sports a tigthly cropped Jedi barnet for the movie with a ponytail out back and a long rat's tail turned fetchingly over one shoulder. And, naturally, it all has some deep-seated meaning harking back to Lucas' infusion of Samurai mythology into his own musings.
   "It's a symbol of where you are as a Jedi," explains McGregor. "I'm not quite finished trainig yet - almost, but not quit a fully-fledged Jedi. I guess there's quite a lot of Japanese looks in the film, the crossover robes and cloaks and the swords. And I also get to wear this tiny poytail that's chopped off like a Samurai and also this long thing."
   An initial look for Obi-Wan featured two strange pigtils on either side of his forehead. Taking on the aspect of a Hasidic Jew, it was deemed a little too sensitive to try and the more flattering look of the movie was devised.
   "I mean, I didn't have a problem with it," laughs McGregor. "I looked like an Orthodox Jewish Jedi."
   If there was one profound Star Wars indoctrination, it was the ceremony of choosing his lightsaber. It was, in fact, simply the lightsaber handle that hangs sexily from a belt but these kind of things are importatn. The event occurrred a few weeks before shooting commenced when McGregor was asked into the props show at Leavesden. The young actor suddenly realised there was a procession behind him. They all gathered around silently (it's hard imagine there weren't a few sniggers) as a large, ornate wooden box was brought out and the padlocks reverentially removed.
   "They said, 'Are you ready?' and I went 'What?'"
   And the box was opened and nine or ten lightsaber handles were arrayed before him. He was sto choose his own personal one. And he milked the event for all it was worth, weighing each one carefully in his hadn, caressing them all seductively.
   "It was an extraordinary kind of moment. I lost myself in it. I got to choose my own lightsaber. It's a sexy one, of course." Of course.
   When the shoot was complete, producer Rick McCallum and George Lucas gave McGregor a beautiful Ducati 748, a hulking great motorcycle that sent the actor into nirvana. He adores bikes. Considering the automotive mishap between Star Wars and Empire, that required Mark Hamill to have reconstructive surgery,this could be deemed tempting fate - McGregor's required for the triple bill - but the sentiment was clear. Lucas was pleased with what he'd got. The cocky git proceeded to race at frightening speed across the runways of Leavesden right before his creator's very eyes. But who needs to play it safe?
   You get the feeling, for all his sharp wit, McGregor hasn't quite come to terms where this Star Wars thing will lead him. This isn't fame, this is iconoclast shaping. It has that effect. It will be so much more than some idiot shrieking at him in the dead of the night - "Obi-Wan, do you have any advice?" (You can imagine what kind of advice McGregor gave to him.) But this will get worse, people, fans will find him. Already there are talesof Jake Lloyd's family having to move away from fans. But McGregor just shrugs his shoulders, sips his beer and pretends it's nothing.
   "I'll just get out," he claims of the hoopla that will surround its openings. "Just be away."
   And away McGregor will go, to Natural Nylon (the production company he started with Britpack compadres and drinking buddies Jude Law, Sean Pertwee, Jonny Lee Miller and Sadie Frost) to produce and star in Nora, a small-scale story of James Joyce's lover, Nora Barnacle. To Australia for Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge, a musical with Nicole Kidman - herself vying to escape the sexual extremism of Eyes Wide Shut - while there is thriller Eye Of The Beholder already sitting in the can, another cog in the unstoppable McGregor work cycle. And, all the while, there is a wife, a child, a life to be had. Then, from May next year, it will be Star Wars Episode II. He may always remain this Ewan McGregor, the scallywag dreamboat of the Britflick revival who may like to play the goat and speak his mind, but Star Wars changes everything. Everything.