Ewan McGregor Rewatches Obi-Wan Kenobi, Trainspotting & More

The first episode used to start,

with me as a waiter in a bar.

You know, like he's really lost his way.

Obi Wan, he's working in a bar,

he's drinking too much,

I get beaten up.

People are kicking me,

and I'm just like taking it,

and then starting out,

you know, into the night.

I mean that was our first ideas anyway,

there was a draft where,

that's how it started.

Hello, I'm Ewan McGregor,

and today I'm gonna be watching

some scenes from my career.

[dramatic music]

[upbeat music]

[video clicking]

[video whining]

Oh. /[water splashing]

There we go,

okay, there. Yeah.

Okay, so it's a tiny shot this,

but I can remember,

there was a toilet

that had been cut in half,

and they had glued a perspex,

across the tube of the toilet,

and they put some water in it,

so it would give the impression,

that we're looking up through the toilet and through water.

Looking at it, I'm not entirely sure why,

but I did have to be naked for this shot,

I didn't have any underpants on.

lovely DP, Brian Tufano,

who shot the first film I ever made, Shallow Grave,

and who shot this film Train Spotting,

and who shot the third film I made,

with Danny Boyle, A Life Less Ordinary,

he was a brilliant DP,

but a brilliant camera operator too.

Brian had to, was lying on the ground,

with this little French camera like this,

with this tape over his one eye.

I came up to him and I looked down,

and he just looked up and he went,

Well I'm about to get to know you,

a whole lot better Ewan,

and I went, /[Ewan laughing]

I'm so sorry Brian,

and he went, All in a day's work,

and I pulled down my pants,

and basically sat down over his,

[Ewan laughing] over Brian.

I don't know that I wanna pull the curtain back,

from this scene you know,

all I can say is I went down the toilet.

So I went down the toilet,

and as you can see,

a toilet has a U-Bend, right?

So we did this shot a few times,

and then everyone was happy with it,

and we were about to move on,

and I had just gone straight in the toilet and disappeared,

and I suddenly said to Danny, I went,

Can we do one more take?

Because I think I need to go around the U-Bend,

and he went, What?

And then if you play it now,

you can see, as I go down here,

now I go around the U-Bend,

and my feet turn around,

so I can come up the U-Bend,

and that came to me once we were doing it,

so that's why my feet turn around at the end there.

[dramatic music]

It is always interesting working underwater.

It's nice 'cause it's so quiet, you know,

it's very controlled under there, it has to be,

and you've got the length of your breath,

and at this point I was,

I mean, so I was younger, oh mind you,

I was smoking a couple of packs of cigarettes a day,

but I had much better lung capacity,

I could stay under for ages.

So we got some nice,

it was just nice and peaceful.

This bit, I was in a pool in Glasgow somewhere,

part and part,

there's the mine,

just hanging off a wire,

but it was just a corner of a swimming pool.

Maybe it was like a diving center or something,

'cause it was quite deep,

and they dressed the bottom,

and there was like a mine,

and the heroine suppositories they had were luminous.

There they are, look how big they are,

but they were massive,

they were like this big, you know.

So as you see them in my hand, they are,

there's a few things in Transporting,

that are sort of slightly trippy like that,

but that's all,

like you'd have a job getting them

up your arse wouldn't you?

Well maybe not.

[video clicking and whining]

Have you come to destroy me Obi-Wan?

[light-saber whooshing]

I will do what I must.

[dramatic music]

I mean there's been a huge journey,

being part of Star Wars,

and for the longest time,

the prequels came out,

there was no social media,

there was no direct communication,

other than critics.

It'd been a long time,

since those original three films,

they obviously were so important,

they meant so much,

to so many people, including myself,

and so it was hard, you know,

it was a big decision to do it,

it certainly wasn't what I'd been doing today.

It wasn't a no brainer for me to say,

Oh yeah, I'll do it.

I'll be Obi-Wan Kenobi,

until I got nearer and nearer,

to getting the role,

and as I got closer and closer to it,

auditions and callbacks and then,

you know, I can't remember how many,

but as I got down to the last two,

it had to be my role.

And so then to do it,

and the sort of excitement of it,

was like massive.

It was such a massive film to shoot,

and then for it to come out,

and to be sort of really panned, was hard.

I had no experience of that.

That was all a bit of a confusion.

So when three finished I was off,

I just was like, See you later,

and I didn't think too much about it.

I'd made great friendships,

I loved working with Natalie,

I really liked working with Hayden,

I liked working with Ahmed Best who played Jar Jar,

I really had a great relationship with him.

It was years later that everyone starts, you know,

now there's Instagram, there's Twitter, there's whatever,

and every day I'm seeing people going,

When are you doing another Obi-Wan?

And I realized there's this like,

oh my God, there's this real desire, I was surprised,

and also like, I thought it was quite funny, you know,

that if, it was just every day,

and then I was to be interviewed about it all the time.

The end of every interview was like,

Will you be playing Obi?

And I didn't, there was no plan.

No one had ever talked to me about it.

Ultimately it got so embarrassing,

'cause I was constantly saying,

Yeah, I'd be up for it,

and then it was like weeks of,

He's up for it, he's gonna do it,

and you know, everyone reading in a lot,

too much, into what I'd said.

So in the end,

I got in touch with somebody at Disney,

and we sat down in an office, and she just said,

You're saying that you would like to do it again,

and all we want to know really,

is do you mean it?

And I said, I'm glad to have this opportunity to say,

yes, I would love to do it again.

[dramatic music]

[light sabers blasting]

[Darth Vader groaning]

And we were talking about a movie at that point,

not a TV series,

'cause that hadn't happened yet,

Disney Plus wasn't there yet and stuff,

so I said, All I can see is him broken,

like as you know, after some time after Episode 3,

and he's in a really dark place.

Anakin's gone. I am what remains.

[dramatic music]

[Darth Vader gasping]

I'm sorry, I am sorry Anakin,

for all of it.

It wasn't really written so emotionally,

I don't think,

but there was something about seeing Hayden,

and something about working with Hayden again,

in that state there,

that made me feel that,

it took me by surprise as anyone else.

Like when it started happening, everyone like,

there was a lot of people on set for this.

Like whenever Hayden was there,

I mean it's a testament to the people,

how the love people have for him,

that whenever Hayden came on set,

there was just hundreds of people.

You could have heard a pin drop.

It was amazing.

Just people were like,

when we walked up,

people were crying at the monitors.

It was really amazing to do.

[upbeat music]

[video clicking and whining]

[heavy panting]

You win, I'm done,

whatever you want,

just tell me.

[Ewan laughing]

I co-signed the mortgage.

You think I don't have a key?

It's so funny 'cause I don't watch,

I haven't watched Fargo for a long time,

but when I see me as Ray,

I am always like, Fucking hell!

That is, it was such a good look.

I really enjoyed playing Ray.

I can't think of a single person,

who doesn't like me, except you.

That's what they say to your face.

I had an actor who played opposite me.

He would be Emmett when I was Ray,

and he would be Ray when I was Emmett.

He had a costume and makeup and hair like mine,

and so they could shoot over his shoulder.

We played both parts on the same day.

So I had a cold during this scene,

and it was really helpful somehow,

it helped the scene itself,

and I just remember being gutted,

that Ray was gonna die.

Like I was so sad,

that I wasn't gonna get to play Ray anymore.

I'm not less than you,

some child that needs-

Ray. Come on.

We've done this already.

Been doing it for 20 years. Enough.

They're so different.

It's like two experiences.

Like I remember one is Ray,

and one is Emmett.

They're like two different movies in my memory almost,

but they were happening at the same time.

And when you're playing a scene,

there were several scenes,

where with Ray and Emmett,

but not that many.

I mean most of the time,

I would be playing Ray in a scene,

and then sometimes I would be playing Emmett,

in the next scene we shot,

but you always had it,

it took a while to become Ray,

'cause I had prosthetic nose,

I had a prosthetic chin,

and I was bald when I made this show,

'cause I shaved every day,

and so that's a wig for Emmett.

So there was technical things,

that had to happen,

to make me one or the other,

that gave me at least an hour,

sitting in makeup, you know,

which was useful,

'cause I had so many lines to learn,

'cause I didn't,

I didn't, that's the thing,

I didn't anticipate in the difficulty,

in playing two different roles.

In fact it isn't playing two different roles,

it's learning two leading parts lines,

'cause you've got two of them.

So every night I was like, Fucking hell!

I'm giving you the stamp.

Well you're not giving it to me.

No I am.

You can't give me, what was mine from the start.

First thing is the accent.

I'm relieved that it sounds like,

'cause it was such a hard accent to do.

I'm looking at it,

not remembering being able to do it,

like that, in a very self-satisfied way going,

Oh okay, that sounds like it works,

I don't know, to my ear anyway.

So the accent's the big thing,

and then I feel like I,

even I am watching two different people.

That was my main goal,

in playing two roles in something,

that it didn't feel like I was, you know,

that it didn't disrupt the story,

because it was in the audience's mind going,

Oh, how's he doing that?

How's he doing that?

So, and I don't, I think it,

I think we did manage to achieve that.

I don't want it.

Take the damn stamp.

[Emmett] Stop.

Take it.

Stop. /[glass shattering]

[dramatic music]

Emmett.

It was like a little boy again.

Like I felt like, them as children somehow,

but I have one brother,

and two years older than me,

and there's something about being with him,

where there's an element,

of us always being kids.

That's 'cause that's,

when I knew him the best, you know?

So there's something about our relationship,

which is always, us as children,

and that's what I felt in that moment,

where he, even after all of it,

and the mayhem and everything,

when he's in trouble,

he's like, he wants him to help.

Can you help me?

You know, Can you help, can you help me out?

[upbeat music]

[video clicking and whining]

For the last four years,

I have resided in Suite 317,

of the Metropole Hotel.

[Speaker 1] Why?

My house was burned down.

The count is being interrogated,

all of the aristocracy were rounded up,

a lot of them had fled Russia,

some were sent away,

but most were killed,

and this is the count,

who refused to run away,

and who was taken before a tribunal of sorts,

and tried as being a sort of enemy,

of the people now, in the new regime.

[Speaker 1] Occupation?

It's not the business of gentlemen to have occupations.

[Speaker 2] Then what good are you to Russia?

You do not seem to appreciate,

the gravity of your position.

No, I fear I understand it perfectly.

The restrictions of wearing a false mustache are huge.

However well it's made,

and however well they apply it,

it sits on your lip here,

and any sort of stretching of the lip there,

makes it come loose and pings off.

So when you're wearing one,

you end up spending the whole day,

speaking to everybody like this,

when you're off camera,

so you don't ping it off.

And I was in every scene of this,

and it was a six month plus job,

and I just thought,

I can't wear a fake mustache,

for six months every day, all day,

it'll drive me insane.

So I grew my own.

The curls are stuck on in here,

underneath the end of my mustache.

One of them gets snipped off in episode one,

and so we couldn't physically snip off my mustache,

or we wouldn't be able to do several takes,

really from here up, that's all me.

Why did you come back,

only a year after the revolution?

You must have understood the reception,

a man of your nobility would receive.

I missed the climate.

It is funny when you're playing the

first scene of something because,

I knew him exactly,

how I felt he should be,

from Amor's novel,

and from Ben Vanstone's brilliant writing.

That's the count, you know?

And yet that was day one of the shoot.

I think it's his education.

He's terribly well read.

He's very clever and witty,

and there is a defiance I think,

now that the revolution has happened,

and his whole way of being,

is outlawed if you like.

He is defiant with his smartness, with his wit,

and is able to insult people with the words,

without them knowing at all,

that they're being insulted,

which just amuses him I think.

[upbeat music]

[video clicking and whining]

And the water,

I kind of conquered my fear of the water today.

I conquered it by doing the thing,

that I feared the most,

which was drawing water into my engine.

Lemme try now,

it might have sounded funny,

'cause it was underwater.

[engine revving]

No, doesn't sound right? Does it?

To my surprise, I was completely calm,

and I just sorted it out.

I took the plugs out,

I pumped the water outta the piston heads,

and then I just cranked it,

put them back in, cranked it up,

and water came spewing out of the exhaust,

'cause of course I'd forgotten,

the water was in the exhaust as well.

It was the mythical part of the trip,

The Road of Bones is so little traveled, you know,

I'm just laughing at us doing it,

because you just think,

it's just sort of bloody mindedness,

Let's ride to New York from London,

and then there's this in the way,

and you're like, Wow, we just have to do it.

A lot of people wouldn't do that,

because it's sort of crazy,

and we messed up our time,

we just didn't get the timing right,

we got there too early.

So after the thaw,

'cause it's frozen most of the year,

but it thaws for a month or two,

and you can ride on the road there,

'cause it's not just ice,

otherwise you have to travel,

on the frozen rivers and special machines,

I don't know, not motorbikes in the winter,

and we weren't gonna do that.

So just after the thaw,

there's so much water melted,

that the rivers become really high,

and you can't cross them,

and that's what we'd done.

We got it wrong,

we just got there too soon.

It's all marshland then.

So the road is the only part of land,

for thousands of miles, you know,

and so you'd ride on it,

and as it got to evening,

you'd look at your watch,

and it would be evening.

Although it was daylight still,

'cause it was so far north,

it doesn't get dark,

and we'd stop the bikes,

and we'd just put our tents up on the road,

because there's nowhere else to put them up,

everything else is marsh,

and there's no one else on the road.

You don't have to worry about being run over or anything,

'cause nobody else is there.

Charlie was always very quick to get the stove on,

and we'd cook up some food,

and make a cup of tea or whatever.

There would be nothing to do.

It would still be daylight.

So we'd just be sitting around,

or kicking stones about,

and telling stupid jokes,

and it was fantastic.

Then you look down,

and it would suddenly be like 2:00 AM,

but it's still daylight.

So you'd be like, Oh my God, we'd better go to sleep,

and you make yourself go to sleep,

or try to anyway.

It was fantastic.

I think that's one of the reasons,

I liked doing it the most, is that again,

it reminds me, of being a boy,

just hanging about the streets.

When you're a kid,

you don't have anything to do,

and you're not doing anything,

but it's, that's all you wanna do,

is get out with your mates,

and hang around on the streets,

and that's sort of what these trips are like a bit,

'cause otherwise you'd never have that time.

You don't just go out, or at least,

I don't just go out and knock about.

[Charlie] One, two, three.

Charlie's really injured himself.

He's pulled all the muscles,

behind the shoulder blade.

No, he was getting his bike up,

off the center, off the stand,

and it slipped,

and he was trying to save it,

and in doing so-

Poor Charlie had really hurt his back at this point.

I mean I was always very close to Charlie,

really from when we met,

and it's a straight, we're so unlikely mates,

but we met on a movie called Serpent's Kiss.

The night we met was the kickoff party for the movie,

and he came up to me,

and he went, Hi, I'm Charlie,

and I know you ride bikes,

I ride this bike,

and I, and that was it.

We just became fast friends,

and then we did everything motorcycling together,

we did, we ran a little race team,

we went on track days,

if he got a new bike,

I'd be there the day, got it,

to watch him ride off on it for first day,

and we'd do rides together,

and then I read this book,

called Jupiter's Travels,

by a man called Ted Simon.

He rode around the world,

on a motorcycle in 1972, I think,

and because of that book,

I'd dreamed of doing something similar.

I bought a world map,

and my ex-wife used to,

was brought up in China.

So I started thinking about maybe,

oh, maybe a trip to China,

and we were, I was sort of looking at the map,

and I just kept looking right,

and it took me off the map,

and then back onto the map to New York.

It's like a straight line,

and that's when I called him,

and I said, I think you better come over,

I've got an idea, and what about this,

round the whole northern hemisphere,

and that's where it came from.

And as a result, we've just shared something,

that I don't share with any other human being.

This like, we've been through three,

of these big trips now,

and I don't have that experience with anyone else.

You know, it's just, we have Claudio with us,

our cameraman who's fantastic,

but it's still me and Charlie,

making all the right or wrong manly decisions.

And so we share that bond,

you know, it's amazing.

Yeah. I love him so much.

[video clicking and whining]

[dramatic music]

Well thank you very much for watching.