FEATURE EWAN MCGREGOR‘

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Ewan McGregor is poised to become Scotland’s hottest film star since Sean Connery. With America falling at his feet, two new films and a happy home life, he seems to have cracked it. Alan Morrison follows him from Crieff to Cannes.

hoose Hollywood. Choose a career. Choose fame. Choose a big house in Beverly Hills and a line of coke by a swimming pool. But why would Ewan McGregor want to do that? He’s got all he needs at home.

By the end of this year, Britain’s hottest star will have no less than four films on show in UK cinemas including new releases Brassed Off and The Pillow Book. Now that Trainspotting has passed the $15 million mark at the US box office (and over $50 million worldwide), offers are rolling in from further afield.

For now, however. the lure of Los Angeles is lost on McGregor because, somewhere in his busy workload. he found time to get married to French production designer Eve Mavrakis. Together, they make a drop dead gorgeous

‘l regularly spent between two and tour hours having calligraphy applied all over my body - very sensual and something I will not forget in a long time.’

couple that rivals Hollywood pairings of Banderas and Griffiths, Depp and Moss. Add to this baby daughter Clara Mathilde, and you have a perfectly obvious reason why he’s unlikely to relocate to the other side of the Atlantic. In fact, his first planned break in ages three months at the beginning of 1997 has been set aside so he can spend time with the two women in his life.

Last time I saw Ewan McGregor he didn’t look like the young sex god that gazes from the cover of style magazines and glossy posters. It was 6am, the morning after the Trainspotting party at the Cannes Film Festival, and McGregor was dead on his feet after having spent days answering the same druggy questions to a conveyor belt of international journalists. Earlier that night, he’d met Noel Gallagher, and Mick Jagger had crashed the party. But his only desire now was to look in on

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5 The List l-I4 Nov 1996