He was Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars trilogy, a heroin addict in Trainspotting and he sang in Moulin Rouge. Originally from Perth, Scotland, Ewan McGregor (March 31, 1971) has proven to be one of the most chameleonic actors of recent times. Did you know that he is a motorcyclist and is a collaborator of Unicef? If you were unaware of these facts, find out more by reading Ewan McGregor’s net worth and full biography.
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ToggleAt just six years old, young Ewan McGregor was already interested in the art of acting. His parents, Charles and Carol, brought him in to show business: every Christmas, the family attended pantomime shows, a traditional UK children’s theater-style. Ewan McGregor’s height is about 1.77 m.
In this way, his desire to learn to act was born. He knew from a young age that acting would be his profession. So, supported by his parents, Ewan McGregor dropped out of high school in 1987 and began to make his way into the performing arts. At just sixteen years of age, Ewan worked as a stage assistant at the Perth Repertory Theater, where he could take part in small roles in the company’s productions.
A year later, he enrolled at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and studied drama under Colin McCormack. His talent allowed him to get his first starring role in the miniseries Lipstick on Your Collar, with only six months before graduation.
When filming Star Wars: Episode I, Ewan McGregor was carried away by emotion and imitated lightsabers’ sound during battle scenes. Ewan McGregor worked for figures such as Tim Burton in The Big Fish (2003), Woody Allen in Cassandra’s Dream (2007) and Roman Polanski in The Writer (2010). With the latter, he won the award for the best actor awarded by the European Film Academy. Ewan McGregor’s net worth is about 25 million US dollars.
In 1993, he leaped to the big screen with Robin Williams in the film Un simple mortal ( A man lost in time ). But his first starring role was in Open Grave (1994), a Thriller directed by Danny Boyle. In which he gave life to Alex. Thanks to this role, Ewan won his first award: The Empire Award.
The success continued when he returned to work for Boyle, this time in the film Trainspotting (1996). He played one of his most emblematic roles. With which he won international critical recognition: the heroin addict Mark Renton. His work was so outstanding that it earned him the Bafta Award in the best Scottish actor category.
I don’t believe in big or small films, since each of them is a challenge for me. Acting means a new opportunity to stop being you and put yourself in someone else’s shoes. That is the most attractive thing about my job.
In 1999, Ewan McGregor’s career leaped to fame when he played the young Obi-Wan Kenobi in Episodes I, II, and III of the Star Wars saga. To do this, he studied the acting techniques of his predecessor, Alec Guinness, to capture the character’s essence. After seeing the first few films in the franchise multiple times, McGregor succeeded.
The path that Ewan McGregor has traveled has been full of successes and roles that have allowed him to develop all his talents. In 2001, he starred in Moulin Rouge, where he not only showed his most romantic side but impressed audiences with his singing and earned him a Golden Globe nomination for best actor in a comedy or musical.
In 2012, he worked alongside Tom Holland and Naomi Watts in the film The Impossible. In this one, Ewan McGregor played Henry: a man desperate to find his family after surviving a natural disaster. For this role, Ewan became the first foreign actor to be nominated for the Goya Awards for Best Supporting Actor.
In 2017, he returned to the small screen in the third season of the acclaimed series Fargo, in which he played twins Ray and Emmit Stussy. That same year he worked for Disney on the remake of Beauty and the Beast, voicing Lumiere. Shortly after, he got into the skin of an adult, Christopher Robin. He was also the protagonist of Doctor Sleep (2019) and the villain Black Mask in the film Birds of Prey (2020).
Since 2004, Ewan McGregor has shared his second passion with the world: Motorcycling. In actor Charley Boorman he has traveled more than 30,000 kilometers through Europe, Africa and America on a motorcycle. During these voyages, McGregor visited UNICEF centers and collaborated with the association as a UN Goodwill Ambassador.