| I try to cheer him up with a story about a friend who went to a public school so strict that any boy caught with a 'girlie mag' was immediately flogged senseless. The only female image they were allowed was a portrait of the Queen which hung in every classroom. With the inevitable result that - 'If what they say about her is true she'd probably be well chuffed to hear about it as well!' So has he now met Madonna? "No, I don't think she'd want to meet me. I didn't want to work with her on a film I've just done in Canada called Eye of the Beholder. I didn't want to be in a Madonna movie, I don't want all the shite that would come along - trainers and 15 assistants. I don't want all that, too much hard work, so I said no to her, and she wasn't best pleased, apparently. 'Who does he think he is?' and all that stuff. There are more interesting people to make films with. Jodie Foster I'd like to work with, because she's beautiful and brilliant, and she's really survived Hollywood. And Mike Leigh, of course, but I think he doesn't use people who are well known. Cameron Diaz I'd love to work with again 'cos she's so much fun." When Ewan played along side her in the last of his Danny Boyle movies, A Life Less Ordinary, he fell about laughing so much that he has a video of 18 such incidents. "That bit where the weird guy comes to the cabin and starts going on about Felix cracked me up. And in that scene in the bar, when I'm mopping the floor and the barman says, 'Nice looking woman' about Cameron who's just left in tears, and I say, 'She's not my type' and he says, 'What the fuck are you talking about? She's a beautiful, elegant, rich woman and you're nothing. What the fuck do you know? She'll be going to a Heaven for glamorous pussy and you'll be wiping the floors in a diner in Hell.' The guy was so funny, so dry and I lost it. We had to play the scene with me looking out of the window, because I couldn't look him the face." 'Corpsing', as we luvvies call it, is something Ewan is worried could occur when he makes his first stage appearance for five years and only his second professional stint since leaving drama college, in the revival of David Halliwell's '60s comedy, Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs. It opens next month at the Hampstead Theatre. First directed by Mike Leigh in 1965, it details the bizarre, cruel rebellion of a bunch of art students led by Ewan's Malcolm Scrawdyke. He was going to Huddersfield the day we met to do research with cast members and his actor uncle Denis Lawson, who is directing. Lawson, a notable director and teacher, and an actor best known for his role as the randy innkeeper in Local Hero and the star of stage musicals like Pal Joey and Lend Me a Tenor, was a big influence on Ewan's early acting ambitions. He grew up in a small town near Perth, where the definition of a 'social club' is five sheep tied to a bus stop. "When he came up to Scotland when I was a kid he really stuck out, because of his London clothes, his flares and Afghan coats, and that passion to get away, to be different. Plus his love of old '30s films. And when I went to pantomimes I'd always fall in love with the principle boy. So it was sex, my uncle and black and white movies." Ewan says he's cacking his pants about being on stage again, so I would advise him never at any time during the run to think about the following: the bar scene in A Life Less Ordinary; Scottish goalkeepers; Chuck Berry. Or Madonna posters. UTTERLY SHITFACED And now to hassle corner. Ewan McGregor, like his neighbours and friends Liam and Noel Gallagher, prefers to speak his mind in interviews. For example, when I ask him if he saw Aston Villa footballer Stan Collymore, practising his skills on Ulrika Jonsson in that Paris bar, he replies that his dad may have seen it but he didn't because "I was at the other end of the bar and I was [posh Fast Show accent] Verrah Verrah Drunk at the time." Just as Noel Gallagher, when asked why he's at a music awards bash will answer sanely, "I had fuck all to do tonight", so McGregor is one of a select and cherishable group of celebrities who would use the term 'absolutely and utterly shitfaced' as an excuse. But being himself can cause trouble. 1. Sean Connery "I love his acting and I never had a fight with him. Complete nonsense. I said that I didn't like him preaching at me because my politics are private and the Scottish press turned it into a Ewan v Sean battle over independence which was a good story but is a sensitive issue up there. And I don't live there so I don't want to pontificate about it, but I'm very proud about being Scottish, and I'm not anti-independence." Yeah, and you don't live in Marbella either. 2. Nick Leeson "I never met him but I made a comment that he should be allowed to come back to England because he's got cancer. They say he doesn't want to, but maybe that's because he can't get to the phone. And the Foreign Office rang my agent and said, 'If Ewan McGregor wants to bring Leeson back he should do it through us and not the media.' So that's fine, then." 3. St Johnstone FC "I went up there recently with a pal to see Ally McCoist's first game for Kilmarnock. And we were ushered into the members' bar and got thrown out for not wearing ties and it was in the papers and the fans went mad. So I put this rumour around saying I'd gone up to sign a star player for them and that caused an even bigger row. Aaaaa..." [etc]. 4. Trainspotting "I've had so much shite out of that film. I got fucking stripsearched at Chicago airport. I was doing an episode of ER and my visa had Warner Brothers on it, and some customs guy asked me about my movies and I said the only ones known in America were Shallow Grave and Trainpotting. And he says, 'Aaaah, Trainspotting' and writes something on my form and when I get to the red and green bit they searched me everywhere. Even up the arse. Fucking stupid bastard!!" 5. Danny Boyle The saddest Ewan sounds during our chat, apart from when he describes his young daughter Clara's recovery from meningitis, is his sudden departure from the Danny Boyle/John Hodge film-making team after three cracking movies. Is it true that they passed you over for Leonard De Cappp... Cip... Ciprichio? "God, I'm so glad you can't pronounce his name. That was The Beach and they needed more money and he's more bankable. There was no big falling out, but I was hurt. I haven't seen Danny since." Part 3 |