People

Ewan McGregor

Acting · follow into films and chains

Biography

Ewan Gordon McGregor (born March 31, 1971) is a Scottish actor. His accolades include a Golden Globe Award and a Primetime Emmy Award. In 2013, he was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his services to drama and charity. While studying drama at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, McGregor began his career with a leading role in the British series Lipstick on Your Collar (1993). He gained international recognition for starring as drug addict Mark Renton in Trainspotting (1996) and as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999–2005). His career progressed with starring roles in the musical Moulin Rouge! (2001), action film Black Hawk Down (2001), fantasy film Big Fish (2003), and thriller Angels and Demons (2009). He gained praise for his performances in the thriller The Ghost Writer (2010) and romantic comedy Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011). McGregor made his directorial debut with the crime film American Pastoral (2016), in which he also starred. For his dual role as brothers Ray and Emmit Stussy in the third season of the anthology series Fargo (2017), he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film. He voiced Lumière in Beauty and the Beast (2017), and played the title role in Christopher Robin (2018), Dan Torrance in Doctor Sleep (2019), and Black Mask in Birds of Prey (2020). He reprised his role as Kenobi in the 2022 miniseries Obi-Wan Kenobi, and won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor for his portrayal of fashion designer Halston in the miniseries Halston (2021). McGregor has also starred in theatre productions of Guys and Dolls (2005–2007) and Othello (2007–2008). He has been involved in charity work and has served as an ambassador for UNICEF UK since 2004.

Notable films

Where to start

Highlights from credits and KinoChain journeys.

The End of Oak Street

As Greg Platt

Trainspotting

Appears in a KinoChain journey

Velvet Goldmine

Appears in a KinoChain journey

T2 Trainspotting

Appears in a KinoChain journey

Beauty and the Beast

As Lumière

Black Hawk Down

As Grimes

Angels & Demons

As Camerlengo Patrick McKenna

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace

As Obi-Wan Kenobi

Chains

KinoChain journeys

Public chains that pass through their films — or name them as a bridge.

Browse all chains

The High Was Never the Point

When Trainspotting arrived in 1996, it was quickly labelled as the ultimate "drugs movie". Decades on, its true subject matter is far clearer. It is not fundame...

8 films

The Show Must Go On

From Freddie Mercury's operatic excess to the raw defiance of punk, this chain traces how cinema captures the transformative power of self-expression.

8 films

The Perfect Needledrop: Ten Moments That Own the Screen

From sudden silences to euphoric choruses, these are the film moments where a song doesn't just score the scene, it becomes the scene.

10 films

Rewinding the Reel: How VHS Championed British Independents

From Thatcher's Britain to the video shop era, discover how VHS gave gritty, daring British films a second life and a devoted audience.

9 films

Growing Pains: Sequels That Leap Through Time

From a Parisian afternoon to a boxing ring, these sequels skip years ahead and find their characters changed, challenged, and achingly familiar. A journey throu...

6 films

20 Home Video Releases Every Film Obsessive Should Own

There was a brief, glorious period in the late 1990s and early 2000s when buying a film on home video felt less like acquiring a product and more like being han...

20 films

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