Ewan McGregor is a very sexy man. He just gives off such a charming vibe. You just want to shrink him down and pop him into your pocket. He also is no holds barred with everything he says. I think that's the reason his publicist made me sign a contract saying I wouldn't reprint this interview but in the place that was initially agreed upon. They obviously can't tell him what to say and he might just say something dirty and unexpected.
His latest film, Down with Love, is a throwback to the sex comedies of the 1960's. Its wacky fun and never boring. Ewan plays Catcher Block [a name which would be a great porno pseudonym] who is a heartthrob who makes all the women swoon. But finds he can't "catch" the heart of feminist author Barbara Novak played by Renee Zellweger.
Read ahead and we'll find out which kind of girl he never got to bed and how he might be doing some porno.
Check out the website for Down with Love.
Daniel Robert Epstein: The director of Down with Love has called it a sex comedy. How is this different from a sexual drama like The Pillow Book?
Ewan McGregor: [laughs] In every respect it's completely different. [Pillow Book director, Peter] Greenaway is very different. It's a unique style and right from the word go it was clear it was going to be tricky to get because it's a very specific way to play comedy. Also in a way we don't play comedy anymore. As long as I can remember it is you don't play the comedy and if you do, you really slap it on. So for a while it made me feel like we were going against the grain.
DRE: Did you feel you wanted to subvert the genre?
EM: No I wanted to nail it. It's a 60's sex comedy which is the only way to say it and it's not anything else. What I loved about those films was the amount of Rock Hudson you felt you saw when you watched them. When he laughed I got the sense he was really enjoying himself. You didn't feel like he broke out of character but there was so much of his spirit in it. I wanted to do that but I find that was a tall order. It's not about rocking back on your heels and letting it happen. It's the opposite. You have to work twice as hard.
DRE: Would Catcher flirt with every man, woman or child?
EM: I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be flirting with any children [laughs]. No I think that sexually he's a ladies man and socially he's a man's man. There was no point in making a modern day sex comedy because we already have them. They're called romantic comedies and they're not usually very good. The film was shot entirely in the studio on fantastic sets with brilliant costumes.
I used to watch the old movies on television. I would spend most of my weekends watching matinees on Saturday afternoons. From my nave child's perspective I thought New York looked fucking amazing. All these colors and characters with their huge apartments and offices. Now when I watch them I think it looks like a studio. There is kind of pretense over what it is. It's just a big fuck all studio picture the like of which they don't do anymore. If they do, do them then it's not working. Also it was my fantasy of being a studio actor like Jimmy Stewart. I bought myself a Porsche 550 Spyder not for $300,000 but for $26,000. it's a fiberglass replica with a VW engine in the back. In the morning I would wake up, jump into my sports car, drive up to the studio, get dressed like Cary Grant and go play on these huge sets with Renee Zellweger. I felt like this was what I dreamed being an actor would be like when I was a kid.
DRE: The big appeal of a movie like this is the chemistry between the characters. What was it like with Renee?
EM: The chemistry was there right away. I've met Renee a few times before and I think we were like minded about our work. Two to three weeks in it clicked but like I said, it wasn't easy.
DRE: Before you were married, were you a swinging bachelor?
EM: I did have a bachelor pad. It wasn't very big.
DRE: Just a bed and CD player.
EM: More or less. I moved to London for drama school and the first year I was there I lived in a YMCA in the business center in London which was a ghost town on the weekends. It was really weird then I lived in the extreme far east of London. I lived in some shitholes there. But when I got my first job, Lipstick on Your Collar, which was a six part TV series. I made money and I rented my place in Primrose Hill which was beautiful. My flat was above a shop and it was a flat you might see in a romantic comedy where the guy's just got a cat and spots a girl waking by. It was very small but fantastic.
DRE: Like your character in Down with Love, have you ever deceived someone to get them into bed?
EM: I'm a man aren't I. You want her name and address. When you're young you go through all that until you realize that's not the road to happiness. I'm sure that everyone plays at being something they aren't to attract a lady into their bed.
DRE: Would you slip some midichlorians into their drink?
EM: I've never drugged anyone for a fuck [laughs]. I've confused them emotionally but never used any drugs.
DRE: I heard of a lot of people who after Star Wars came out. They went and saw Velvet Goldmine and The Pillow Book to see Obi-Wan swing it all out there.
EM: That would be good for them.
DRE: [laughs] You haven't done any nudity since. If a part called for it would you do it again?
EM: Yeah. I've never understood actors who have rules against those things. I wouldn't consider myself an actor if I had a list of things I won't do. How would you know if you would never be naked in another movie until you read a script? I wouldn't ask someone to write a scene where I get my kit off. It staggers me how big a deal everyone makes of nudity. In my daily life I'm naked quite a lot of the time. Probably 8 hours of my 24 hour day are spent naked. When I'm interacting with my wife and child at home I'm quite often naked. Yet the second we put that onscreen everyone shits themselves. I always thought films were supposed to represent life. If it's just to see someone's cock or vagina then that's not a valid reason but I don't think they get away with that as much anymore. That strikes me as something that was done in the late 80's and early 90's when women were required to get their kit off to get people in to see the film. I might be wrong. I suddenly thought of Baywatch but that's television.
DRE: You've done two Star Wars films. What do you expect from the third one?
EM: Fuck I don't know. I start in a few weeks and I haven't seen a script. I can't know what to expect because I don't know what the fuck it's about.
DRE: Are you happy with the two Star Wars films you've done?
EM: Yeah because children have finally seen my work. I hope they haven't seen my films before that. I have yet to see one projected digitally because that's supposed to be fantastic.
DRE: When you did your darker film you picked up a certain audience. A more Goth crowd. What do you think of that crowd?
EM: I don't come across them so much anymore. I remember Goths from my teenage years. With fantastic miserable black hair and white skin. Its one of my regrets that I never went to bed with a Goth.
Also everyone keeps asking me about Porno.
DRE: Porno?
EM: Yeah you haven't seen my porno films? No, Porno the book, the sequel to Trainspotting that Irvine Welsh wrote. I read the book and loved it because I got to see what happened to our characters ten years later. But it didn't move me as much as the Trainspotting novel had. Ultimately it's more or less the same story. It would be terrible to leave the audience remembering a poor sequel as opposed to the film we did. The first film was so phenomenal.
DRE: Are you and [Trainspotting director] Danny Boyle still getting along?
EM: There's no problem. We just have to wait for the right project to come along.
DRE: You're working with another icon of the culture, Tim Burton, on the movie Big Fish. What's that like?
EM: It's phenomenal. I loved working with him because there is such an ease. It was just beautiful. There was no trauma between action and cut. Just playing. That's a tribute to him and the other actors. I felt set free by him. It's a mark of a director to have the incredible confidence and talent to let that happen. The fear of directing is that you may feel like you have to control everything. But the truth is you hire incredibly talented people in all those departments and let them go while he steers the talent.
DRE: What's it about?
EM: It's a father son story about when their relationship becomes severed. Albert Finney plays the father and I play him as a young man. The father has always been a great storyteller about his own life where he tells all these exaggerated stories which I play out. It's perfectly Tim Burton. It's not a fairytale or fantasy but somehow it's fantastical.
by Daniel Robert Epstein.
His latest film, Down with Love, is a throwback to the sex comedies of the 1960's. Its wacky fun and never boring. Ewan plays Catcher Block [a name which would be a great porno pseudonym] who is a heartthrob who makes all the women swoon. But finds he can't "catch" the heart of feminist author Barbara Novak played by Renee Zellweger.
Read ahead and we'll find out which kind of girl he never got to bed and how he might be doing some porno.
Check out the website for Down with Love.
Daniel Robert Epstein: The director of Down with Love has called it a sex comedy. How is this different from a sexual drama like The Pillow Book?
Ewan McGregor: [laughs] In every respect it's completely different. [Pillow Book director, Peter] Greenaway is very different. It's a unique style and right from the word go it was clear it was going to be tricky to get because it's a very specific way to play comedy. Also in a way we don't play comedy anymore. As long as I can remember it is you don't play the comedy and if you do, you really slap it on. So for a while it made me feel like we were going against the grain.
DRE: Did you feel you wanted to subvert the genre?
EM: No I wanted to nail it. It's a 60's sex comedy which is the only way to say it and it's not anything else. What I loved about those films was the amount of Rock Hudson you felt you saw when you watched them. When he laughed I got the sense he was really enjoying himself. You didn't feel like he broke out of character but there was so much of his spirit in it. I wanted to do that but I find that was a tall order. It's not about rocking back on your heels and letting it happen. It's the opposite. You have to work twice as hard.
DRE: Would Catcher flirt with every man, woman or child?
EM: I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be flirting with any children [laughs]. No I think that sexually he's a ladies man and socially he's a man's man. There was no point in making a modern day sex comedy because we already have them. They're called romantic comedies and they're not usually very good. The film was shot entirely in the studio on fantastic sets with brilliant costumes.
I used to watch the old movies on television. I would spend most of my weekends watching matinees on Saturday afternoons. From my nave child's perspective I thought New York looked fucking amazing. All these colors and characters with their huge apartments and offices. Now when I watch them I think it looks like a studio. There is kind of pretense over what it is. It's just a big fuck all studio picture the like of which they don't do anymore. If they do, do them then it's not working. Also it was my fantasy of being a studio actor like Jimmy Stewart. I bought myself a Porsche 550 Spyder not for $300,000 but for $26,000. it's a fiberglass replica with a VW engine in the back. In the morning I would wake up, jump into my sports car, drive up to the studio, get dressed like Cary Grant and go play on these huge sets with Renee Zellweger. I felt like this was what I dreamed being an actor would be like when I was a kid.
DRE: The big appeal of a movie like this is the chemistry between the characters. What was it like with Renee?
EM: The chemistry was there right away. I've met Renee a few times before and I think we were like minded about our work. Two to three weeks in it clicked but like I said, it wasn't easy.
DRE: Before you were married, were you a swinging bachelor?
EM: I did have a bachelor pad. It wasn't very big.
DRE: Just a bed and CD player.
EM: More or less. I moved to London for drama school and the first year I was there I lived in a YMCA in the business center in London which was a ghost town on the weekends. It was really weird then I lived in the extreme far east of London. I lived in some shitholes there. But when I got my first job, Lipstick on Your Collar, which was a six part TV series. I made money and I rented my place in Primrose Hill which was beautiful. My flat was above a shop and it was a flat you might see in a romantic comedy where the guy's just got a cat and spots a girl waking by. It was very small but fantastic.
DRE: Like your character in Down with Love, have you ever deceived someone to get them into bed?
EM: I'm a man aren't I. You want her name and address. When you're young you go through all that until you realize that's not the road to happiness. I'm sure that everyone plays at being something they aren't to attract a lady into their bed.
DRE: Would you slip some midichlorians into their drink?
EM: I've never drugged anyone for a fuck [laughs]. I've confused them emotionally but never used any drugs.
DRE: I heard of a lot of people who after Star Wars came out. They went and saw Velvet Goldmine and The Pillow Book to see Obi-Wan swing it all out there.
EM: That would be good for them.
DRE: [laughs] You haven't done any nudity since. If a part called for it would you do it again?
EM: Yeah. I've never understood actors who have rules against those things. I wouldn't consider myself an actor if I had a list of things I won't do. How would you know if you would never be naked in another movie until you read a script? I wouldn't ask someone to write a scene where I get my kit off. It staggers me how big a deal everyone makes of nudity. In my daily life I'm naked quite a lot of the time. Probably 8 hours of my 24 hour day are spent naked. When I'm interacting with my wife and child at home I'm quite often naked. Yet the second we put that onscreen everyone shits themselves. I always thought films were supposed to represent life. If it's just to see someone's cock or vagina then that's not a valid reason but I don't think they get away with that as much anymore. That strikes me as something that was done in the late 80's and early 90's when women were required to get their kit off to get people in to see the film. I might be wrong. I suddenly thought of Baywatch but that's television.
DRE: You've done two Star Wars films. What do you expect from the third one?
EM: Fuck I don't know. I start in a few weeks and I haven't seen a script. I can't know what to expect because I don't know what the fuck it's about.
DRE: Are you happy with the two Star Wars films you've done?
EM: Yeah because children have finally seen my work. I hope they haven't seen my films before that. I have yet to see one projected digitally because that's supposed to be fantastic.
DRE: When you did your darker film you picked up a certain audience. A more Goth crowd. What do you think of that crowd?
EM: I don't come across them so much anymore. I remember Goths from my teenage years. With fantastic miserable black hair and white skin. Its one of my regrets that I never went to bed with a Goth.
Also everyone keeps asking me about Porno.
DRE: Porno?
EM: Yeah you haven't seen my porno films? No, Porno the book, the sequel to Trainspotting that Irvine Welsh wrote. I read the book and loved it because I got to see what happened to our characters ten years later. But it didn't move me as much as the Trainspotting novel had. Ultimately it's more or less the same story. It would be terrible to leave the audience remembering a poor sequel as opposed to the film we did. The first film was so phenomenal.
DRE: Are you and [Trainspotting director] Danny Boyle still getting along?
EM: There's no problem. We just have to wait for the right project to come along.
DRE: You're working with another icon of the culture, Tim Burton, on the movie Big Fish. What's that like?
EM: It's phenomenal. I loved working with him because there is such an ease. It was just beautiful. There was no trauma between action and cut. Just playing. That's a tribute to him and the other actors. I felt set free by him. It's a mark of a director to have the incredible confidence and talent to let that happen. The fear of directing is that you may feel like you have to control everything. But the truth is you hire incredibly talented people in all those departments and let them go while he steers the talent.
DRE: What's it about?
EM: It's a father son story about when their relationship becomes severed. Albert Finney plays the father and I play him as a young man. The father has always been a great storyteller about his own life where he tells all these exaggerated stories which I play out. It's perfectly Tim Burton. It's not a fairytale or fantasy but somehow it's fantastical.
by Daniel Robert Epstein.
VIEW 25 of 40 COMMENTS
naty:
i love EWAN!!! 
naty:
i love ewan!!!!!!!!!