From Guardian Unlimited: 'I just get fed up when everything's not great' Ewan Mcgregor: He's the eternal optimist, the affable, unpretentious family man who happens to be a sex-god superstar lusted after by millions. Yet still he doesn't feel loved. Any volunteers? By MIRANDA SAWYER Sunday October 4, 1998 Ewan McGregor is one of the most extraordinary people you could ever meet; but what is startling about him is his delightful, dumbfounding ordinariness. His freakish normality. Richard E Grant noticed it when he worked with him on The Serpent's Kiss. He called Ewan 'astonishingly grounded considering the career tornado around him, it's amazing his head doesn't turn around 360 degrees'. A (non-famous) friend of mine who appears with Ewan in his latest film, Todd Haynes's Velvet Goldmine, says: 'Ewan's just not like a celebrity. You don't feel like you have to be witty or interesting all the time when you're with him.' Certainly, I've never interviewed anyone like him. When you interview famous people, there is an unspoken hierarchy: the star is more important than you. Obviously. The star is the one with the interesting talent/opinions/life, the star is the point. You don't talk about yourself at all, you don't always get looked at, you allow the star to waffle on about stuff that they think gives them credibility (tough background, art-type projects, ouch-my-foot name-dropping of clubs/designers/drugs). Interviews with famous people are not conversations between equals. But Ewan McGregor meets you on absolutely level terms. He doesn't travel with an entourage, he's not shepherded by PRs. He doesn't flirt, he doesn't show off, he isn't cool (he loved Oasis's third LP when the world was backlashing). He lacks a single smidgen of the expensive sheen that usually lacquers over the successful. He looks you in the eye and guffaws at jokes. There is no side to him. He's not being nice to impress, either: I saw him treat a cafe waitress in the same easy, friendly manner. Maybe he has less time than you, but that's no surprise he has to fit interviews into his phenomenal schedule and anyhow, if you meet him after lunch, he often manages to extend things over a few drinks. Actually, read his press cuttings and you'd think he was never out of the pub. He told the Face that 'it's just a state of being for me. I'm just usually drunk', and before I met him, I'd seen him quite trashed, out around London, in everyday pubs and members-only bars, at film premieres and comedians' parties. But even when sloshed, Ewan is remarkable for his unselfconsciousness. He just gets thoroughly plastered and laughs a lot; doesn't make a big deal of himself, nor bother to stop himself from behaving like a goon. But at the moment, Ewan is sober. It's seven o'clock in the evening and we're talking on the telephone. We're meant to be discussing his new film Velvet Goldmine, but the conversation (that strange word again) has moved about a bit, and right now, Ewan is informing me that he uses tongues when he snogs on film 'every time!' (I'd heard that some actors just open their mouths and squirm their lips about.) He's too diplomatic to say which of his many devastating leading ladies has been the best kisser, but he decides that 'the bloke in The Pillow Book' was the best of the chaps. Our chat moves on again, and soon Ewan is trumpeting in his enthusiastic, yet oddly soothing, tones about the Scots 'I love Scotland and I love Scottish people. They're very emotional people, we're always crying up there, usually because we're happy. Or drunk'. Then the Spice Girls (he likes Sporty: 'nice bod'); then Leonardo diCaprio. Lovely Leo has been cast as the lead in The Beach, the adaptation of Alex Garland's debut novel which will be the fourth film from the Danny Boyle-Andrew MacDonald-John Hodge alliance that made Shallow Grave, Trainspotting and A Life Less Ordinary. Ewan starred in all three: the first two made his name (along with the Boyle team's). Which makes it all the more surprising that he will not be starr- ing in Boyle et al's fourth effort. Especially as, last year, Ewan told me he was getting excited about doing The Beach. Now he says he's 'gutted' that he's not in it. Why aren't you? 'Och. . . it was all getting rather expensive and they would get more money for the budget if they cast Leonardo,' mopes Ewan. 'But don't get me wrong, it's definitely not a feud between me and them or anything. I was sad to miss out, partly because it'll be a good film, but mostly because I love working with them. I love working with Danny.' There's a pause, then Ewan brightens and starts chatting about his motorbikes. I first met Ewan in October 1997, in Scarborough, where he was filming Little Voice with Jane Horrocks. We walked to a cafe for a late breakfast. Ewan was mildly hungover from the previous night's sampling of Scarborough's after-hours delights: a local arcade owner had opened up his premises for a lock-in, and Ewan stayed until 3am, drinking beer and playing on the shoot-'em-up machines. Eight hours later, we strode past the bright tat of the souvenir shops, past young mothers and a gaggle of skiving teenagers, towards his sausage and egg. No one asked for his autograph. I pointed this out. 'See! Not famous!' he laughed. 'Anyway, when I do get asked for autographs, people are kind of unsure: 'Are you sure you're him? Ewan McGregor's really thin. You're too fat and unattractive.' What he meant by 'fat and unattractive' is that he doesn't look like he did when he played Renton in Trainspotting. Renton, shaven-headed, skinny, two stone lighter than the Ewan of now, was heroin chic to a scummy tee and a chap who got the ladies going. I know of one woman who used Renton as motivation when she went for her early-morning swim she kept thinking of him, just out of reach; I know of several sophisticates in their thirties who asked me if I knew where he went out, or whether he had a girlfriend, or if I could get hold of a big poster, anything. I certainly fancied him in Trainspotting, but when you meet Ewan McGregor, he's not like that. He's fat and unattractive. Only joking. He's a handsome, scruffy bloke, in skate shoes, army-type trousers and enormo-anorak. He has a rubbish spiky haircut and pasty skin; clear eyes; blob nose; lovely voice; big, infectious laugh. He's like your bumptious younger brother. Sorry, girls. We talk about his performance as Curt Wild in Velvet Goldmine. The film is a glassy-eyed fantasy based on the glam-rock era of the 1970s. It's not a documentary, though there are several characters who are clearly based on real people: Brian Slade (played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is like David Bowie; Ewan's character resembles Iggy Pop. This means Ewan gets to bleach his hair blond, take all his clothes off on stage and waggle his willy at 200 screaming extras: 'It was written in that I was just going to moon at them, but I'd been doing some research into Iggy Pop, into what an outrageous character he was, and I was absolutely smashed so it all came out. So to speak.' Page 2