Ewan McGregor on Perfect Sense, Eating Soap, and ‘Messy’ Sex
Which of our senses do we most take for granted? In the film Perfect Sense, a mysterious plague shuts down humanity’s senses one by one, each preceded by an extreme emotion: a profound grief leaves victims with no sense of smell, feeding frenzies precede a loss of taste, fits of rage mean deafness will follow. Ewan McGregor, playing a chef, and Eva Green, as an epidemiologist, meet in the midst of all this and fall in love, even as they themselves lose their ability to smell, taste, hear, or — inevitably — see each other. Fortunately, McGregor has not lost his ability to chat, so Vulture checked in with him about eating soap, taking on his first TV role, and “messy” sex.
Did you spend time with any chefs to prep for your part in Perfect Sense?
I worked with an old friend of mine, Guy Cowans. He has a place called Guy’s in Glasgow, and he’s also a movie-set caterer in Britain. He became the chef advisor for the movie, for all of the sequences in the kitchen. So I worked with him for about a week, observing, about two or three hours a night, and I actually ended up helping out. I spent a few nights doing service, when it got really chaotic. [Laughs.] I used to be a dishwasher and a waiter when I was 14, 15, 16, so I do have some experience with that, but it’s fascinating to watch them keep the orders straight — what steak to cook for how long and all of that. It’s really quite something to see. So I was taught how to make several dishes that we incorporated into the scenes. Guy orchestrated most of it; we wanted it to be realistic, for our movements to make sense, so it looked like we knew what we were doing.
A career break has left workaholic Ewan McGregor feeling refreshed after nearly 50 films in 20 years. He tells Lucy Broadbent about life in LA, his tear-jerking new movie and why he wants to be remembered for more than his nude scenes
A dirty old man’s laugh honks down the hotel corridor, as if someone has just told a rude joke. That someone is Ewan McGregor, who now opens the door of his suite. “Come in, come in,” he says, his eyes still creased into laughter lines. “We were just … ” He never says quite what they were “just … “, but good humour hangs in the air like a party streamer. McGregor offers a handshake which percolates with the enthusiasm.
Dressed in a black T-shirt that sits tight on his lean frame, jeans cuffed at the ankle and black bovver boots, which he slams on the coffee table in front of him, he really doesn’t look that far removed from Renton, the character from Trainspotting that made him famous more than 16 years ago. Not that he looks like a heroin addict. But the clothes, the boots on the table, the pasty skin — the only difference might be a good haircut. Even at 40 years old, he doesn’t seem to have aged at all. Los Angeles, which is where we are now and where he is living, appears to agree with him.
Hello everyone! I’ve been away for the weekend, which is why these updates are a little late. On January 19, Ewan made not one but three appearances! During the day he was at SiriusXM Studios to talk about Haywire, and then in the evening he attended the NYLON Guys January Issue Party (for which he was the cover star) and he also appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon! Pictures from all three events have been added to the gallery, and stay tuned for clips and captures from Jimmy Fallon. Enjoy!
Ewan McGregor is beaming behind the wheel of his rusty 1960-something Volkswagen pickup in the parking lot of The Standard Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. A left and then a fewblocks and then one more left on South Main Street, and he’s at yet another parking lot, this one deserted for the day’s shoot. Still sporting the tailored navy suit and brown tie from the last few frames shot in the hotel, he’s quickly out of the battered VW and ogling one of the day’s props, the photographer’s midnight blue 1964 Mustang, the one with the tiny little side-view mirrors that look like they belong on a dentist’s tray, and the missing “D” on the hood that renders its make “FOR.”
McGregor’s fondness for motor sports is well documented. A known gearhead, he has twice in the last decade embarked on cross-continental motorcycle trips — one around the northern hemisphere and one down the length of Africa. Both were broadcast as miniseries. On this day, he has his vintage Spanish test bike, another of the shoot’s props, lashed down in the bed of the pickup. He is still grinning when he takes the bike down the ramp, and later when a neighbor leans out a window to complain about its apparent lack of a muffler.
A day earlier, in the Spanish-style back patio of a Santa Monica cafe, no muscle cars or motorcycles or other toys in sight, that McGregor smile, the one he deploys with a glance to the middle distance when he makes sort of Zen pronouncements about his life or career, is on frequent display. Somewhere between content and amused, it is what a screenwriter might call a “knowing smile.”
Ewan McGregor plays a shady character in Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire, which is out next Friday on Jan. 20. He stars in the picture alongside MMA-fighter-turned-actress Gina Carano and happily got to exchange some jabs with her. His next movie out, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, pairs him with Emily Blunt. The latter film was a fun one for Ewan to make, and he said Emily made him “laugh like a drain.”
Beginners (2010)
Perfect Sense (2011)
Haywire (2011)
The Impossible (2011)
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011)
Jack the Giant Killer (2012)
