Ewan McGregor is being hyped as the new big thing from Britain, and so is the movie he stars in, Trainspotting.
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Ewan McGregor has been hyped as "the hottest young actor in Britain." Just now, though, he's acting like any other 25-year-old starstruck rock fan. The object of his devotion: Oasis, the rude, crude, hilarious Manchester band that's the UK's most hyped musical export of the moment. The Scottish actor pops an Oasis cassette into a tape player. "They're great," he says breathlessly. He's even dreamed about them: "I'm waiting for them to go onstage and they ask me to come on and be the lead singer. I'm, like, 'fuckin' fantastic!' Next thing I know, I'm backstage after the show. They say, 'You did great, man. You remembered all the lyrics.' Amazing dream..."
The hottest new British actor dreaming about the hottest British band? It must mean something profound about fame and hype. "I think it means I desperately want to be a rock star--at least for one night," McGregor laughs. He's been pulling in his own Oasian superlatives thanks to Trainspotting, the hip Scottish film about Edinburgh heroin addicts, which, by the way, has been hyped as "the best British film of the '90s." It's the UK press that's launching all this pop-culture superhype, and frankly, I tell McGregor, it strikes me as a desperate Limey need to kick American arses. "I was worried because everyone was saying stuff too early--'the best this, the best that'--way too soon. If you tell people, 'This is the best film you've seen in a long time,' they're gonna be disappointed, no matter how good it is."
Trainspotting is certainly the most energetic British film in a while. Based on the cult novel by ecstasy-fueled Scottish hipster Irvine Welsh, the film mixes the kinetic pop sensibility of A Hard Day's Night with the grim dystopian squalor of A Clockwork Orange--without, it must be said, being the equal of either. This is the second collaboration of producer Andrew MacDonald, writer John Hodge and director Danny Boyle, the trio behind 1994's stylish thriller Shallow Grave, in which McGregor was good as a smart-ass journalist. He's better in Trainspotting, playing the film's working-class heroin-addicted nonhero with a charismatic swagger reminiscent of a couple of Malcolms: McDowell circa if... and McLaren circa the Sex Pistols.
Trainspotting generated lots of prerelease controversy in the UK because of its nonjudgmental attitude towards drugs. Now that the film is out, I ask McGregor, what's the response been? "Mostly favorable," he says. "There were a couple reviews in the bullshit papers which were predictably narrow-minded and stupid: 'It's a disgraceful pro-drugs movie--it'll poison the minds of our children!' In fact, it's the biggest anti-drug movie I've seen in a long time. People die of AIDS in it." And there's a rancid dead baby, and McGregor's junkie dives into a shit-filled toilet to retrieve an opium suppository, etc. But the film's biggest gross-out, morally speaking, is that it shows kids having a great time doing smack. 'That's why people are upset," McGregor says. "But why do they think people do heroin? It's fun--at least at the beginning."
McGregor says he almost -- but not quite--found that out for himself. "We spoke about it before we filmed: should we try heroin? Once we started doing research with some of the addicts--once we met those people, it felt really disrespectful even to think about that. But at first, I kinda had an attitude: I'd lost all this weight to play my character, and I felt that Kate Moss skinny glamour and had this romantic idea. Because heroin's the worst one -- the big, bad one. So there's a mystique around it."
McGregor is in Hollywood at the moment to shoot Nightwatch, a $10 million independent psychological thriller by Danish filmmaker Ole Bornedal. The film also stars Nick Nolte and Patricia Arquette, but, McGregor says, "It's not that different from shooting Trainspotting. It's not a big studio film." He sounds relieved at the prospect of going home to London, Who could blame him? The hottest British actor of the '90s couldn't even get into the trendy Hollywood hangout Bar Marmont the other night. Wasn't he a bit insulted? "I could give a fuck if I'm recognized at the door of a club," he shoots back. "I'd hate for that to become important. 'Don't you know who I am?' I mean, why should anybody know?"
On the other hand I remind him, there's his rock-star jones. '"Something about that lifestyle appeals to me," he agrees. "Probably because I can't do it myself." McGregor, at 25, is a family man--his wife and baby daughter are with him in L.A. All in all, he seems a lot more reserved than the manic Oasis boys. But he sure digs their style. We talk about the band's Liam Gallagher, who, at the recent Brit Awards, told the cream of the rock world to fuck off. "'It's wonderful, isn't it?" McGregor says giddily. "An actor could never be like that. You'd last about three weeks, wouldn't you? Can you imagine being onstage at the Oscars? 'Fuck off, ya cunts!' You'd never get away with it. Not that I'm that way anyway. I like people a lot more than Oasis does."
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Joshua Mooney interviewed Vanessa Williams for the June '96 issue of Movieline.