He's been playing a Jedi for Lucas, and has starred opposite some of Hollywood's biggest leading ladies, but the actor comes home for this piece of Scots existentialism
He's been playing a Jedi for Lucas, and has starred opposite some of Hollywood's biggest leading ladies, but the actor comes home for this piece of Scots existentialism
"I want to play dark characters," asserts Ewan McGregor. And he's not kidding. As Joe, a predatory drifter, in David McKenzie's dark and complex adaptation of Alexander Trocchi's existential novel Young Adam, McGregor has plunged himself into the murkiest depths of the human experience.
"It was one of those one-in-a-million parts in films," he says. "It was very reminiscent of the feeling I had after reading Trainspotting for the first time, in that I had to do it."
Not everyone shared the actor's enthusiasm for the project, though. Even with him, Tilda Swinton, Emily Mortimer and Peter Mullan ("four of Britain's finest actors, I'd arrogantly like to think") attached, the moneymen, including some British film financing bodies, refused to open their wallets.
It felt like being slapped in the face, says McGregor. "I have always believed myself to be first and foremost a British actor. I spend a great deal of time making films outside Britain, but I live here and I always bring it home."
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