Ewan McGregor

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and one, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:31

My castaway this week is an actor. Great talent, accompanied by charm and self confidence, has carried him on a giddy journey from Perth Rep to Hollywood. His feet, however, remain firmly on the ground. The star of train spotting, shallow grave, and Star Wars will not be impressed by New Woman magazine's verdict that he's the seventh most fanciable man in the world.

Presenter0:51

Though only thirty, he's already retired from the stage once. That was when he was five, on the grounds that there was no point in acting until he could do it properly. He's doing it properly now, as anyone who's seen him acting and singing in his latest film, Moulin Rouge, will testify. But he remains wary. The bigger you get, he says, the more you're paid, the more it isolates you. He is Ewan MacGregor.

Presenter1:15

Do you mean isolates you just on set when you're filming you and or do you mean in life in general?

Ewan McGregor1:20

I think in terms of your work, y y it's a big danger that you suddenly you're in a big hit film like Moulin Rouge and then suddenly you're getting lots of scripts that are absolute garbage. There's a sense that now you've done Moulin Rouge, now you've really got to be a big star in America, which is something I've never ever been particularly interested in. It's never been my drive.

Presenter1:40

I've read that you said that quite often, but is that true?

Ewan McGregor1:42

Is that true? The scripts I've been reading recently are big romantic comedies in the States and whatever, which is kind of a path that a lot of people go to to become a star in the States. But doing a cookie American romantic comedy isn't anything to do with me.

Presenter1:58

So on that basis then who you are is somebody who likes being part of a team you like that ensemble playing, you know the Shanagrave train spotting team player.

Ewan McGregor2:03

I do grave train spotting team player. Yeah, especially if you've worked with people before, like with Danny Boyle, I made three movies with him and Mark Herman, we did Brastoff and Little Voice, and it's a great feeling to go to go back.

Presenter2:15

It's interesting you say all of that, because of course in many ways, reading about your life as I've been, you have kind of all the way through until you became until you made it, you have set yourself apart. It's like I mentioned you retiring aged five.

Speaker 42:27

Yeah, yeah.

Presenter2:28

It would be very easy to think that you were somebody who starred in all the school plays and went on to drums where you were the star of that. But you were. Everything I read says that you were always holding back, sitting on the side, retiring as I was.

Ewan McGregor2:34

Have it.

Ewan McGregor2:39

I guess. I was very arrogant about that. Uh since I was five, I played the Sheriff of Nottingham when I was five.

Ewan McGregor2:45

Because I was the only person in the class who could say the Sheriff of Nottingham and I was marvellous in the role. And um but then when I you know by the time I got fourteen, fifteen, I was much more interested in performing either poetry readings and music instead of acting in school plays, because I really did think I don't want to do it until I'm doing it properly. I thought this is silly and I'll wait until I'm doing a proper

Presenter3:04

You really didn't.

Presenter3:08

And yet it was your dream to do it properly.

Ewan McGregor3:09

Yeah, exactly. I never ever was going to do anything else. So then, you see, I was concentrating on music, so I I played the French horn, I was a a drummer in the pipe band and I recited poetry at evenings and stuff.

Presenter3:20

We better have your first record. I think all of what you just said is reflected in the event, really, isn't it? Tell me about the first record.

Ewan McGregor3:23

Well the first one is um Mozart's Horn Concerto, number four. I I don't know that I can now believe that I was once that good to be able to do that. Also I'd like to play it for my old uh horn teacher George Annan who's in Perth because I haven't seen him for very many years.

Presenter4:39

Dennis Brain playing part of the second movement of Mozart's Horn Concerto No. Four in E flat major, with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Herbert von Carrion. Very calming, that on your favourite island, John.

Ewan McGregor4:48

Yeah, it's beautiful.

Presenter4:50

You have some experience of these things, of course, because you went uh sort of on a kind of survival course in Honduras for television recently, didn't you? That got pretty hairy, didn't you?

Ewan McGregor4:56

Television recently, didn't you?

Ewan McGregor4:59

It was very, very tough. I I knew it would be, I suppose. But I really felt at this point in my life I wanted to challenge myself. I'd spent far too

Ewan McGregor5:08

long, you know, on film sets surrounded by hundreds of people where every decision is kind of made for you. This is when you'll be picked up in the morning, you can have this for breakfast, you'll be doing this then, la la la la la. And so it was a perfect opportunity to do that and to survive with only what we could carry on our backs, you know, on a few mules.

Presenter5:23

Actually no one

Presenter5:24

Watching it, I mean, you began, I thought you were acting very well, as it were, for the camera. You were very up and optimistic, but I one did sense that you became really quite dispirited to that.

Ewan McGregor5:29

Yeah.

Ewan McGregor5:33

And that's right. Uh

Presenter5:35

Well, I think

Ewan McGregor5:36

Any adventure or journey like that is going to have that kind of shape. I think you start off really I was dying to get in there and we'd been talking about it for so long and then suddenly we were being flying in on a helicopter over the rainforest, which just stretched for as far as you could see. And they dropped us in the only clearing I could see from the air and left us. And so you were incredibly excited and up for the whole journey. And then we spent three or four days going down the river on rafts. And then we had this three day walk from morning till night. We were walking up and down and up and down in this thick mud.

Speaker 46:08

And in them with

Ewan McGregor6:08

And in the middle of heavy and in the middle of that I just

Presenter6:09

Yeah.

Ewan McGregor6:11

You think I've had enough now, go home now. But you can't, you just know where to go. But you said you can't.

Presenter6:14

But you can.

Presenter6:15

But you said you came out of it, having left a lot of your worries behind. It's interesting that an experience like that is kind of truly recreational in that sense.

Ewan McGregor6:19

Yeah.

Ewan McGregor6:23

It was brilliant. And as a result, I I'm I'm planning to do more. There's a trip I'm doing in May with Doug Allen, who shot a lot of The Blue Planet, and we're going to do a journey of diving under the ice in the Arctic.

Presenter6:34

It's very kind of boyzown stuff, it is. And I don't want it to sound glit, but is that to get away from this star status thing, which you obviously shun? I think it's just.

Ewan McGregor6:36

Please

Ewan McGregor6:41

What's your

Ewan McGregor6:42

I think it's just I realized by doing the jungle film that I actually do

Ewan McGregor6:46

have a great taste for that kind of adventure, you know, I really do. But I think in those situations I feel much more like me. I'm not surrounded by people who are doing stuff for me and can I get you a cup of coffee and all that stuff, you know, it doesn't happen there and I feel very solid in myself and I come back.

Presenter7:03

But number two.

Ewan McGregor7:04

Record number two is Forrest Requiem, and it reminds me of my mum always when I listen to it. My mum and my dad ev eventually used to sing in the Creef Choral Society. I think my mum's always thought that I was dragged along, but we were taken to this little church and my mum was singing in the choir singing For his Requiem and I'd just never forgotten it. It was a beautiful little church, all these lovely old ladies singing For his Requiem and I think if I was cast away, you know, on my own, this would remind me of my mum and I think that's that would be nice.

Speaker 47:40

We have this love.

Speaker 48:22

Oh, take on

Presenter8:29

The opening of Foray's Requiem, sung by the Union Corrale de la Tour de Pay with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romand, conducted by Ernest Anselme, to remind you if you like that. You have a French wife, of course, so you know about these things.

Ewan McGregor8:38

To remind you of that.

Ewan McGregor8:41

Yeah about these things. I knew all about that.

Presenter8:44

This is to remind you of your mum, you say, singing in the local choral society. That's presumably, therefore, where you've inherited the voice from, is it?

Ewan McGregor8:46

In the local court.

Ewan McGregor8:51

Oh, I don't know, yes, I suppose. I mean, I think basically I I I inherited a great sense of music r from my both my mum and my dad. And my dad always played guitar and I I remember sitting on stairs with my older brother when we should have been asleep, listening to him and his friends singing really dirty songs in the lounge downstairs, you know? I can remember that.

Presenter9:10

Let's go back to talking about your mum. She's obviously very special. She, I read, even packed your sandwiches and lent you the dog when you decided you were running away.

Ewan McGregor9:12

Yeah, she

Presenter9:19

Where did you go, and why?

Ewan McGregor9:20

I went up the knock. Creef's kind of built on the side of a hill called the Knock. I can't remember why I was running away, but I'd I was fed up and I'd had enough. I was probably about seven or eight. I went to the kitchen and very politely, I suppose, told my mum that I was leaving home and running away. So she made me some sandwiches and gave me a little bottle of milk, and the dog

Ewan McGregor9:39

and and said, Well, off you go And I went storming up the knock, which only leads to the other side which comes down the knock, you know, it doesn't really go anywhere.

Presenter9:47

But you stopped at the top of the top

Ewan McGregor9:47

And I stopped at the top and I sat under a tree and I ate my sandwiches and drank my milk with a dog, and my English teacher wandered by and asked if I what I was doing and I told him I had run away from home.

Ewan McGregor9:57

He thought that that was fine and he wandered off. And then I of course went home because I had the dog. So my mum very cleverly, you know, gave me the dog'cause she knew I'd have to come back.

Presenter10:05

But she was a teacher, and so was your dad. Your dad was a teacher at the school you and your brother went to. That must have been difficult.

Ewan McGregor10:09

That's right.

Ewan McGregor10:11

Well, it wasn't really. I mean he was a PE teacher and later a careers master also and very, very liked by all the pupils. So because he was so liked it was fine really.

Presenter10:21

But again, the impression one gets is of you and MacGregor sitting on on the edge of this schooling business.'Cause your brother was old, two years older, and he was headboy and you know, good at sport and all these things. I mean, there's this suggestion that you you were in his shadow in some way. I don't know. But you've got your brother and your dad.

Ewan McGregor10:27

Yeah.

Ewan McGregor10:29

Yeah.

Speaker 410:35

Yeah.

Ewan McGregor10:35

Yeah.

Ewan McGregor10:37

Hmm.

Presenter10:37

In the school, and you're kind of got a bit of an attitude problem or something.

Ewan McGregor10:40

It's got a bit of

Ewan McGregor10:42

They kept saying that towards the end, yeah. And it kept cropping up, that I had an attitude problem. And I suppose because I had one, I wasn't aware that I had one, you know. I was frustrated, I think. I knew what I wanted to do. Since I was nine I wanted to be an actor. So what I was really interested in was music, art.

Ewan McGregor10:58

And music and art, really, that's about it. But um, I wasn't allowed to do them both. You know, I got to 14 or something where you have to make your choices, and they wouldn't let

Presenter11:04

They wouldn't like

Ewan McGregor11:05

Let me do both.

Presenter11:06

So then, this brilliant. I'm a fan of your mother. She's great. She took a very brave decision, my mother.

Ewan McGregor11:09

She's great, yeah, you'd like her very much.

Ewan McGregor11:13

Yeah.

Presenter11:13

Uh

Ewan McGregor11:14

Well, we were driving, I remember I was driving to my friend Crawford's house in Creef and it was lashing with rain. Now this was in the half-term break, so I'd gone f started my penultimate year, and this was in the mid-term break. And um, out of the blue, completely out of the left field, my mum said, Look, I've been speaking to your dad, and if you'd like to leave school, you can.

Ewan McGregor11:36

And I couldn't believe my ears. I was freed and I really felt like that. I've said in the past that my life suddenly went into widescreen. Their possibilities were endless. So I decided not to go back and I didn't. I just didn't turn up and everyone went back.

Ewan McGregor11:52

Got my ear pierced, which was the first thing I did.

Ewan McGregor11:55

And a week later, uh after I'd been hounding Perth Repertory Theatre for for quite a long time to go and let me work there, and they'd always said no. But this week I left school, they were looking for extras to play in a passage to India.

Presenter12:08

You blacked up and

Ewan McGregor12:09

I was lacked up and turbaned up and I had to run around going Aziska Jay, Azizka J. I still can't remember what that means, by the way.

Presenter12:16

Record number three.

Ewan McGregor12:17

So number three is Chat Baker. Now this is because this is the tune that opened the play I was in two or three years ago in in London. I hadn't been on stage for seven years. My uncle Dennis directed brilliantly our play, Little Malcolm and his struggle against the eunuchs. I can't tell you how frightened I was the first night when you were standing in the wings. And this this music opened our play. So whenever I hear it, it just takes me back to that night standing in the wings in the darkness wondering what the hell I was doing there and who thought this was going to be a good idea.

Speaker 413:10

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 413:38

Ah

Presenter13:48

Chet Baker playing Alone Together, and that was recorded in New York in nineteen fifty nine, and memories of Standing in the Wings terrified. You'd had this um training, this kind of theatrical upbringing through, as you say, Perth Rep and into Kicordi.

Speaker 414:00

I'm talking

Speaker 414:01

Uh

Ewan McGregor14:01

Yeah.

Presenter14:01

Um apparently you were by your own admission a complete pain in the butt during this time.

Ewan McGregor14:06

Yeah,'cause I went to Perth Rep a week after I left school and I turned up there and I I was going to be an actor and basically I was only I mean, I was an extra in this play and then became a member of the stage crew for six months. Basically scene changing, you know, coming on sometimes in costume in the blackouts and

Ewan McGregor14:26

Changing the scenery around

Ewan McGregor14:27

But I was going to be a great actor and there I was, you know, just full of it, full of it. I remember having a conversation with two young who were acting ASMs at that time, one of whom I still know, and I was saying I'd never do a soap, I'd never do an advert, I'd never do this and that. And they'd both trained and were now working for a pittance at Perth Rep, and they were saying, Well, I would. I mean, God, I'd need the money and la la and I was like, No, never, you must never do those kind of things. I had a very high horse, which I still do have, but I had occasionally jump off.

Presenter14:59

And so, spool on to the passing-out auditions at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, and the worst happened, which was.

Ewan McGregor15:05

Not

Ewan McGregor15:07

Which was

Presenter15:07

You drive.

Ewan McGregor15:08

Yeah. But during this time in Coccodi we'd we'd we'd worked on a play about oil rigs and I'd written this quite tasty monologue with a guy in a wheelchair who'd lost his legs on an accident on the oil rigs, which happens a lot, you know, there's terrible accidents out there. Which was very dark. And in the middle of it was a little joke.

Ewan McGregor15:26

Now I wheeled myself on my wheelchair. This is in front in Guildhall Theatre, with an audience of two hundred and fifty agents and casting directors, basically the people who who can make and break your future, your career.

Speaker 115:37

Korea

Ewan McGregor15:38

And so there's a fear like I can't describe there. And I'm wheeling myself on in my chair with a blanket over my knees and my legs tucked up underneath the wheelchair. And I started this monologue. Now I'd chosen it because I thought it was good, but also I thought it would look good in the programme. You and MacGregor, the name of the monologue, and then you and MacGregor, because I'd written it. So I'd have my name twice. I thought that would look good. So I got halfway through the speech and I couldn't remember for the life of me what the next line was. I'd completely dried.

Ewan McGregor16:08

And I thought, Oh God, I've written this myself and I don't know what the next line is So I looked down and itched my stumps a wee bit and kind of got a line out of my head from somewhere and carried on.

Ewan McGregor16:20

And then when I got b when I wheeled myself back into the wings, I realized I'd missed the gag, I'd missed the joke. And I really thought, That's it, I'll never work. They hate me, I've blown it'cause for me, when you dry on stage, it feels like you're standing there for half an hour with egg on on your face. And nobody did notice in the audience that I had dried.

Presenter16:38

And you've never been out of work since?

Ewan McGregor16:38

And I've never been out of work since. So there we are.

Presenter16:40

Yeah.

Presenter16:42

Next piece of music, number four.

Ewan McGregor16:43

Well, Eddie Better and um Nassrap Fatty Alakan. This is from the Dead Man Walking soundtrack and it's a tune I've enjoyed very, very much. So it'd be nice out there.

Speaker 416:54

Okay.

Speaker 416:58

Cannot speak.

Speaker 417:02

There's no need to say goodbye.

Speaker 417:11

All the friends and family.

Speaker 417:15

All the families going round, round, round.

Speaker 417:22

Brown

Presenter17:23

Ede Veda and Nusrat Fatih Ali Khan singing The Long Road. You were telling me while that was playing about the terrible indignity of these passing out auditions from drama school and agents slipping you cards.

Ewan McGregor17:29

Yeah, these populations.

Ewan McGregor17:33

It's terrible because after after you've done what happens is you do a big opening number, everyone gets to do a monologue and everyone gets to do a two-handed scene, and then you finish with a great big, really embarrassing musical number. Then, I think, everyone should go home. However, what they do

Ewan McGregor17:48

all the the people from drama school go out with platters of sandwiches to the foyer where the audience you've just played to are all swanning around, agents, casting directors and whatever. And they make you walk around handing out sandwiches. Now what happens is the people that they like

Ewan McGregor18:02

get surrounded by agents and casting directors and everyone else is left wandering around with a tray of sandwiches, you know. It's horrible. Fortunately for me, but rather embarrassingly one of the ones who was handed a lot of cards. I came away with a lot of business cards in my pocket.

Presenter18:14

And indeed you got jobs straight away. Channel four you did uh lipstick on your car for Dennis Potter piece straight away. Then you did Scarlet and Black for for the BBC.

Ewan McGregor18:16

Channel four you did.

Ewan McGregor18:18

Yeah

Speaker 418:19

Uh

Ewan McGregor18:20

Yeah.

Presenter18:22

So you started making some money. I mean, how did it change your life in material terms? I mean, what about on the housing, Ladd? You're only still only twenty or something.

Ewan McGregor18:28

I don't know any you only

Ewan McGregor18:31

Oh, that's right, yeah. I I had my twenty first birthday on set on Lipstick and Your Collar. I was probably two thirds of the way through my final year at Guildhall and was offered the part of Private Hopper in Lipstick.

Presenter18:44

Sort of Elvis crazy music.

Ewan McGregor18:45

Yeah, kind of music, yeah. And uh, 24 grand or something I got paid, and I had to phone my dad immediately to let him know, and you live.

Presenter18:52

And you lived out in Hackney.

Ewan McGregor18:56

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was in Hackney, Kingsmead este estate in Hackney. It was meant to be notoriously kind of dangerous estate. I I I thought it was all right. The only thing I did see was two guys

Ewan McGregor19:06

driving a car head on into a wall. And I thought that they must have been really hurt, but they got out and looked at each other over the roof and burst out laughing and ran off. So from there,

Presenter19:16

Sounds like train spotting. Yeah, yeah, it was a bit like that, I suppose.

Ewan McGregor19:17

Yeah, yeah, it was a bit like that I suppose. And then from there I I when I was doing Lipstick and Your Collar, my mum and dad were down f I think for my it must have been for my twenty first birthday. And we were walking up from my uncle's house in Chalk Farm up Regent's Park Road. There was always people playing guitars and whatever. Really rich bohemia, do you know what I mean? And as we were walking up there I saw this I was saying I'd love to live in the street. My mum saw this sign saying one bedroom flat to let.

Ewan McGregor19:41

And I was m I was moved in about two weeks later.

Presenter19:43

And then, of course, not long after that came Shallow Grave, you know, the very dark film about a group of flatmates who cut up the dead body.

Ewan McGregor19:48

That makes

Speaker 419:49

Yeah.

Presenter19:50

which became a cult. So you really it all seems very effortless. Was there a moment during all of that when you suddenly

Speaker 419:50

But

Presenter19:57

stood there or walked up the street or whatever and said

Ewan McGregor19:58

What I mean

Presenter19:59

I've done it.

Ewan McGregor20:00

Yes. When I moved into Primrose Hill, into Regents Park Road, I walked up one night on to the top of the hill. You can see all the lights of London round you. And I felt like I'd I'd arrived, you know. But uh, like you say, it's been kind of effortless. I don't know why, I've been very lucky. It it things have flowed one into the next. Yeah.

Presenter20:19

You m you sound worried in case it doesn't go on like that?

Ewan McGregor20:22

No, no, it'll be alright.

Presenter20:26

Takeo number five.

Ewan McGregor20:26

Yeah.

Ewan McGregor20:27

Stevie Ray Vaughan is a just he sounds like he's playing something with eighty strings on it, the way he plays a six-string guitar. He was killed in a helicopter accident. I mean, rather tragically, like a lot of great people seem to have been, you know, planes or whatever. This is a song called Tin Pan Alley. But um, all my this flat I had in Primrose Hill really became it's where I met Jude Law and Johnny Lee Miller and Sean Pertwee and we kind of became this

Ewan McGregor20:53

We were just out a lot, all of us. Out to lunch most of the time, but out a lot. And we'd kind of bump into each other on a Friday and the next thing would be that they were leaving my flat, it would be Sunday night, you know. It was kind of that flat where all parties would end. And they'll all remember this song because I used to play it every time. I think they did get rather tired of it after a while, but I I never did.

Presenter21:46

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble with Tin Pan Alley and memories of staying up all night in Primrose Hill.

Speaker 121:51

Uh

Speaker 421:51

Baha.

Speaker 121:51

Uh

Speaker 421:51

Uh

Speaker 121:51

Uh

Speaker 421:52

Exactly.

Presenter21:53

Dangerous living, yeah.

Speaker 421:54

Yeah, yeah.

Presenter21:56

So next came Train Spotting, you know, great, great film, groundbreaking film of the 90s.

Speaker 421:59

Excellent.

Presenter22:03

For anyone who doesn't know about a group of Scottish guys hooked on heroin, it's very funny, it's very black. You played the lead, Renton.

Ewan McGregor22:08

Benton

Presenter22:09

The addict who's always about to give up and

Ewan McGregor22:11

Yeah, that's right.

Presenter22:11

Does but doesn't at all. Nasty nasty person really, although quite entertaining and quite funny. I mean only out for himself.

Ewan McGregor22:17

It's very weird when you've played a character to kind of

Ewan McGregor22:22

See what he is to other people, you know. I just remember re getting this script to read. I read it and it was one in a million, you know.

Ewan McGregor22:31

It was the part, maybe the part of a lifetime.

Presenter22:33

Does it go on being like do you spot parts, you know, when you read?

Ewan McGregor22:33

Because if you

Ewan McGregor22:36

Yeah.

Presenter22:36

Yeah. You sort of read the few pages and suck it away, or think, hang on, this has got something.

Ewan McGregor22:38

Yeah.

Ewan McGregor22:40

There's some jobs you do that it's gotta somehow be personal. That doesn't mean they all they can all be like train spotting,'cause they can't. So there's ones that are very personal to you because they're such a challenge to you as an actor.

Ewan McGregor22:53

Where other things like brass off, there's a real

Ewan McGregor22:56

A very important story that you want to be involved in. I think that the miners story is a terrible and sad one, but one that needs to be told.

Presenter23:03

What about Star Wars and Obi-Wank and Obi-? Well there again, please for me personally.

Ewan McGregor23:07

I'm just laughing, I don't know why. Personally, for me, because as a as a child.

Ewan McGregor23:14

I don't know, maybe'cause it's the exception, but uh, as a child I loved those movies, you know, I loved them. And to be I suppose I couldn't believe ever being in it.

Presenter23:22

And you have the Jedi on your duvet or whatever.

Ewan McGregor23:24

I did. I used to have and I used to know all the words to the first film and all that stuff, you know.

Presenter23:28

But you these are, again, we should explain, they're kind of prequels, aren't they, as opposed to sequels? So you play Alec Guinness, as it were.

Ewan McGregor23:33

So

Ewan McGregor23:34

The young Alec Guinness. Alec Guinness, as it were. I keep getting told I'm not as good at everyone Kenobi as he is, which is really annoying.

Presenter23:41

But a clever friend of mine has spotted that you copy his speech patterns and his intonations. Is that right?

Ewan McGregor23:44

But these intonations, is that right?

Presenter23:46

Give me an example.

Ewan McGregor23:47

I'm not going to tell you. People will have to do it.

Presenter23:48

No shorts of now, come on.

Ewan McGregor23:51

When they find us, they will catch us and grind us into tiny pieces. In the original films he s he had some crack in lines. I feel a massive disturbance in the force.

Presenter24:01

But apparently it's very, very hard work.

Ewan McGregor24:03

And they're no

Presenter24:05

And they are no fun, despite the fact that we think you're having a great time with things whizzing around and

Ewan McGregor24:08

Yeah.

Ewan McGregor24:09

It's just none of it there, unfortunately. It's just all it's none of it there, you know. And that was a came as a big disappointment to me. I remember walking around with George Luc Lucas at

Presenter24:11

The nasty.

Ewan McGregor24:17

Levesden where we made the first film. In the script there was this submarine thing. We go underwater and through the center of a planet and come out the other side in this submarine. And we were walking round looking at the sets that were being built. And he went, The submarine's round here and I th I said, So do you actually film underwater? We're going underwater and you film and he went, He looked at me like I was crazy and said, It's none of it real, you know?

Presenter24:40

What's all this what's all this about standing on a box to be as tall as Liam Neeson?

Ewan McGregor24:43

Yeah. I was just always behind him. People used to say, What do you do in the first film? And I said, Well, if you look find Liam and look either over his right shoulder or his left shoulder and I'll be there And I was always very often just behind him, you know.

Presenter24:57

Got number six.

Ewan McGregor24:59

This is a friend of mine singing Tony Ashton who died in May. He was a great drinker and a I suppose a drinking buddy of mine really. I met him shortly after I'd moved into Belsize Park. And my father and I we went out one night and we stumbled across this pub, the Havestock Arms. And we went in and I met this there was a guy in a a bright orange balaclava and round glasses, effing and blinding in a thick Glasgow accent. So I felt very at home, you know, and I I went up to the bar later, much later on that evening and was standing next to this very glamorous tall lady. And I said, it's great, I've just moved into the area, you know, and I'm here with my dad and we've just met a guy from Glasgow, it's fantastic.

Ewan McGregor25:40

She said he's not from Glasgow and I said he is. And for two weeks or so he had me believing he was a Glaswegian. I later found out that this glamorous lady at the bar was his wife, Sandra. He died in May and it was just awful. I forget. He was such a great presence and such a lovely, generous, funny man. And I I f I remember from time to time he's not here. So when I listen to his music he kind of is here, you know. It's a lovely thing as an artist, he's left behind his art and he's left behind his music.

Speaker 426:23

Oh God!

Presenter26:37

Ashton Lord and I'm gonna stop drinking. Lot of your music seems to me reminds you of death. I mean you got Tony Ashton in that one, you had Stevie Ray Vaughan in the helicopter.

Ewan McGregor26:45

Steve.

Ewan McGregor26:46

Yeah, maybe I'm just a bit behind. Maybe I just haven't caught up, and a lot of the people I like have

Ewan McGregor26:51

Passed away, you know.

Presenter26:52

What do you think about death much?

Ewan McGregor26:56

No no, not particularly.

Ewan McGregor26:59

I mean this.

Ewan McGregor27:00

There can be great beauty in it, I think. There's you know, there's something that that's very beautiful about being someone while they're passing away, I don't know, that will stay with you forever, that are very im important moments that are shared between the person who's dying and the person who's with them, you know.

Presenter27:16

Did that happen to you with Tony Ashton?

Ewan McGregor27:17

Yeah, he had me laughing, you know, to the end.

Presenter27:20

A lot of life about you too, because you've just had your second daughter. Yeah.

Ewan McGregor27:24

Yeah, Esther Rose.

Presenter27:25

Esther Rose just over two months now, I think.

Ewan McGregor27:28

Yeah.

Presenter27:28

And first one, Clara, isn't it?

Ewan McGregor27:30

Yeah.

Presenter27:30

She's old.

Ewan McGregor27:31

She's five and three quarters.

Presenter27:33

And and

Presenter27:34

Actually sounds a bit deathly this, sorry, but you you you had a terrible time with her terrible scare, didn't you?

Ewan McGregor27:38

Clara got um meningitis just before she was one. I was away in LA and so I was kind of essentially on her own. And we spent her first birthday in the hospital where she was born.

Ewan McGregor27:51

I think something that it takes you a while to get over, that kind of thing, you know.

Ewan McGregor27:54

The very real risk that you're about to lose your child is something that you can't you d you know, it takes a lot of getting over that, I think.

Presenter28:01

And you apparently take your family with you quite a lot when you're family you're away.

Ewan McGregor28:04

Yeah. Yes, I do. It's going to be harder now that Clara's at school, yeah. But um.

Presenter28:05

Does that work?

Ewan McGregor28:09

I just defer desperately try to.

Ewan McGregor28:12

Some of the films I make now take I mean, Monon Rouge took nine months or something.

Presenter28:16

Hm. In Australia.

Ewan McGregor28:17

Whereas before it was I could do four films a year, I had eight weeks, six weeks shoots.

Presenter28:21

Then you're talking as well about diving under the Arctic Circle or whatever it is. Well I mean, what happens when Clara says, Daddy, don't go away so much, you're never here?

Ewan McGregor28:24

Tick circle

Ewan McGregor28:31

Well, she doesn't because she is always with me. She won't come up to the Arctic Circle. That's fair enough.'Cause I wouldn't take her up there, you know. But I always try and make sure that they're there and, um, I'm not I have you know, I've made one film this year. I haven't not working like at the rate that I used to.

Presenter28:46

Equal number seven.

Ewan McGregor28:47

This is for the moments when I'm missing them, I guess, on my desert island. And in a way, you know, this is this is for my m very melancholy moments i on the island. It's Jimmy O'Brien and it's he's playing Dark Loch Nagar, but on the Eland pipes.

Presenter29:30

Jimmy O'Brien playing Dark Loch Nagar on the Elen pipes. It's f very melancholy. Obviously hits the Celtic spot now.

Ewan McGregor29:36

So you hit

Ewan McGregor29:37

Yeah, it touches me.

Presenter29:40

You're very versatile, as as we all know. I mean, and a glance at the filmography tells us that from Renton, we talked about the heroine addict, Frank Churchill in Emma we we we haven't mentioned, Alex Shallowgrave, and then of course Moulin Rouge.

Ewan McGregor29:49

At

Speaker 429:50

Blink

Ewan McGregor29:50

Shh.

Speaker 429:52

Yeah.

Presenter29:53

Butter wouldn't melt, singing like an angel. They'll get you in the end, won't they? They'll pigeonhole you in the end,'cause that's what they like to do.

Speaker 429:55

Uh

Ewan McGregor29:59

Yeah.

Ewan McGregor30:00

They like to.

Ewan McGregor30:02

I'll do my damnedest not to let them, you know.

Presenter30:04

You don't do anything just for the sake of it, you say.

Ewan McGregor30:07

I mean I think I think to be honest I've died once I I decided to do Emma

Ewan McGregor30:13

which was straight after transporting, because I thought that, you know, I've had a good feeling that transpotting would be a success and I should be seen to be doing something like that.

Ewan McGregor30:23

Just to show kind of some

Ewan McGregor30:26

Range.

Presenter30:26

But y you know, we began by talking about the the dangers of stardom and success and so on. Obviously, all of that worries you, doesn't it?

Ewan McGregor30:32

And success and so on.

Ewan McGregor30:35

Yeah, I mean I'm just concerned

Ewan McGregor30:37

Yeah.

Ewan McGregor30:39

I don't like to think the way I do it, it is, you see. I've worked with some actors who are

Ewan McGregor30:44

Their goal and their mission, their drive is to be as famous as they can be. Well, I I'm not interested in that. You'll never get there. You'll never be famous enough. No, it'll never happen.

Presenter30:54

But can't you say that if you have achieved it and you have? I mean, you are famous and you've done the Hollywood thing and you've made quite a bit of money. You can take these views now. It's people on the way up who have those views, isn't it?

Ewan McGregor30:58

Yeah, but it's

Ewan McGregor30:59

Well, yeah.

Ewan McGregor31:01

Yeah, it's people on the way.

Presenter31:05

Not people who've arrived.

Ewan McGregor31:05

No, but I've worked with them. I mean, it's just a very different way to work. When somebody's.

Ewan McGregor31:10

Acting is just to be famous. It's a very different way to work. It's very hard to work with those people. Because my drive is to be successful because I'm good at my job. So my drive is to be as good at my job as I can be. I want to keep it real. I want to that sounded like alleged, but I want to keep it real, you know? I don't want to lose what made me good in train spotting, what made me good in shallow grave. I want to hold on to that. And it's easily lost, I think. As soon as you start worrying about

Ewan McGregor31:35

How big your trailer is and how much money you've been paid, it can be very easy to get caught up in that and forget what it's actually really about, which is being in front of a camera and doing your job.

Speaker 131:44

Last record.

Ewan McGregor31:45

My last record comes from an album that I've had in uh all my life. This is obviously my dad's record. I now have it. It's Amazing Grace and it used to make me cry as a wee boys to sit listen to it and weep.

Presenter32:56

Amazing grace played by the pipes and drums and the military band of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards. If you could only take one of those records, Ewan. Which one would you take?

Ewan McGregor33:06

I think it'll have to be Loch Nagar, I think.

Presenter33:10

What about your book?

Ewan McGregor33:11

I'd like to take

Ewan McGregor33:13

Proust.

Ewan McGregor33:14

There's six volumes in Satche. No, not in French, unfortunately, in English. My mother-in-law gave me them to me as a present. I just love it, but God, it takes some time, you know. You need

Ewan McGregor33:26

I mean, I'm almost looking forward to my old age, so I can sit and read them properly. But if I'm going to be.

Ewan McGregor33:31

On my own with lots of time, then I think the Proust would do.'Cause there's six volumes as well, which is quite tr quite sneaky, isn't it?

Presenter33:38

And your luxury.

Ewan McGregor33:40

I like a chromatic harmonica'cause I can stick it in my bandanna or wherever I've got to stick it and take it with me wherever I am on the island and play music, you see.

Presenter33:49

Ewan McGregor, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Ewan McGregor33:52

It's been my great pleasure. Thank you very much.

Presenter33:54

And happy new year.

Ewan McGregor33:55

Thank you, Agi.

Speaker 134:03

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.

Speaker 434:51

Uh