| Time Out November 1998 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Time Out is the magazine 'guide to life', (ie. pubs, clubs, the arts etc.) and based in the UK. This article transcript appears thanks to David. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ewan McGregor "I have a beautiful wife, and a beautiful child, and fantastic, wonderful parents and I love my job. In fact I'm Mr Fucking Lucky" Ewan McGregor is probably the busiest actor in Britain. When he's not waving his dick at extras, filming Star Wars prequels, or starring in the prestigious opening movie of the London Film Festival, he's producing this, directing that - soon, he'll be following Kevin and Nicole on to the London stage. And he's "cacking his pants" at the prospect. Everybody says what a great bloke Ewan McGregor is. And they're right. He really is. He likes a laugh and he's an impressive lateral thinker - which is just as well, because he's got that much going on at the moment that I'm worried I might say to him: "So Ewan, why are you playing a glam-rock bisexual Star Wars character in a play directed by your uncle Denis Lawson, co-starring Jane Horrocks, Patricia Arquette and James Joyce and called Little Velvet Malcolm and his Struggle Against the Blue Room Voice?" Here's an example of his sense of fun. Early on in our meeting in a deserted café in the attractive, canal-side Holborn Studios in North London, we are discussing his rock-star role in Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine when talk turns to 'rock sleaze' and moves towards the figure of Chuck Berry who now has a block all to himself in the rock 'n' roll Hall of Infamy. Ewan's blue eyes bulge, pop and glitter as I tell him about Chuck's 'toilet tapes', as revealed by Spy magazine. I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that no rock writer will now use lightly the words 'shit eating grin' to describe his legendary on-stage ebullience; nor could anyone listen to Chuck's once popular B-side, The Wee Wee Hours, and kid themselves that it's a song about insomnia. Keep Chuck firmly in your mind, because some time later we are discussing Ewan's role as jailed city dealer Nick Leeson in the forthcoming film Rogue Trader. It was filmed in Kuala Lumpur, which Ewan found "weird", and Singapore, which he thought "boring and uptight" - which, we agree, is ironic, since the airport tags read 'SIN'. Conversely in Bangkok, which is, floating market and Buddhist temples apart, a giant knocking shop, the tags read 'BAN'. So I tell him about four days I spent in Bangkok en route to Australia, and my hotel which gave new meaning to the term 'room service'. I ordered chicken satay and they sent up a girl. I ordered a pot of tea and they sent up another girl. I finally wigged out when I ran out of toilet paper and they sent up two girls without a bog roll between them. Ewan chuckles and says: "What you should have said was, 'Look girls, you're both very pretty and all, but I don't think I really want to wipe my arse with you'." Slight pause. "Mind you, I do know a rock 'n' roll legend who does!!!" DICKS OUT FOR THE GIRLS Ewan's own libidinous instincts have already been documented; he's not averse to uncoiling the old trouser snake in public: "Iggy's got a great love for his penis. It's quite a large one and he's really into it. I can't say I feel quite the same way. I mean, I don't go around thinking, 'Hey, I've got a huge cock, go on show me yours and let's compare sizes'. But at the same time when people ask me if I'd be so keen to flash my willy if it was small, I always think, 'Well how the fuck am I supposed to know?! Ahhhhh-ahhhhhhhhhhhh-ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Ewan's sometimes unsure whether he's actually flashed in a film or not - "it probably came out somewhere" - but in Velvet Goldmine he waved away at all hours of the day and night, considerably beyond the call of duty. "The concert stuff was where I really got my rocks off. They couldn't say, 'Be here', 'Be over there'. I said, 'Just light the stage because I don't know where I'm gonna be', and I lost the plot completely. I dived into the audience just after pulling everything out again. Todd [Haynes, the director] said, 'There's a field, an open-air concert, and it's full of hippies.' I come on doing all this stuff and they boo me and tell me to get off. And he said just moon them at the end of TV Eye. "But I remembered this thing where Iggy just undid his pants, stood with his hand down the front of his trousers for ages, just staring them out. And started jiggling about, and his pants started to move down slowly, like this." Ewan starts trying to dance out of his kidneys. "So I did this and started to pull my willy about and told them to fuck off. It came out of nowhere and there was a dead silence after he said, 'Cut!' But I had to do it again and again all night long from all different angles, so must have liked it. "It's great to be there at 4am in front of 400 extras getting paid well for doing something that would normally end you up in prison. Women are always being asked to get their kit off, so it's only fair that I get mine out. So tell your readers I'm making a feminist stance by shaking my willy around as much as possible. I'M DOING IT FOR THE SISTERS!!!!!! Aaaaah-arrrghhhhhhhhhhh!" While happy to talk about his member, Ewan isn't quite so forthcoming about the most enjoyable use to which it can be put by any adolescent lad. You admitted to the Observer that you once, er, spanked the plank to Madonna posters. "Yeah, what was that? I don't even remember saying that. That was embarrasing." Are you suggesting that Miranda Sawyer, a fine writer and star graduate of the Time Out school of Column Writing, made this up? "Noooo. I probably said it to someone else and she picked it up. It's not something I would say in an interview to be printed, that I used to have a wank over Madonna. Ha! I might have said it, but I don't remember. Anyway, masturbatory stories don't look good, even in Time Out." Part 2 |