Some fancied Richard E Grant for it. A colleague insisted on Benedict Cumberbatch, and I\u2019ve heard convincing arguments for Kenneth Branagh. There was even wild talk of Robert Downey Jr. <\/span><\/p>\n But of the millions who fell for A Gentleman in Moscow<\/a>, Amor Towles\u2019s internationally successful 2016 novel setting Bolshevism against breeding in the moustachioed, perfectly tailored form of Russian aristocrat Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, how many had Obi-Wan Kenobi<\/a> down for the lead role?\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s true that we feel a personal connection when we fall in love with a piece of writing,\u201d says Ewan McGregor of readers\u2019 possessiveness of the part. \u201cBut I felt like it was mine, because I had that connection with the writing. I thought, \u2018I know how to play him.’\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n He was right. The 52-year-old actor, in black T-shirt and heavy-rimmed spectacles, sipping his morning coffee in a New York hotel room, has pulled it off, big time. <\/span><\/p>\n McGregor gives a nuanced and occasionally rip-roaring performance as Rostov, the aristocrat hauled before a Communist tribunal in 1922. Thousands of class enemies are being killed, but the count is spared the firing squad on condition he never leaves the grand Metropole Hotel he\u2019s staying in. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In that sense, the eight-part Paramount Plus<\/a> series is about confinement and how we survive it, resonant themes since lockdown. <\/span><\/p>\n But as it charts the Red Terror, Stalin\u2019s 1930s purges and the gulags in Siberia, the series is also, inescapably, about Russia\u2019s periodical descent into bloody discord. <\/span><\/p>\n Tellingly, it arrives just weeks after the death of Russian opposition politician<\/a> Alexei Navalny in a Siberian penal colony. \u201cIt\u2019s diabolical, dreadful,\u201d says McGregor. \u201cHe tried to stand up against Putin and ended up dead.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n He is similarly torn by the war in Ukraine, a country he crossed from west to east with Charley Boorman for the BBC\u2019s 2004 travelogue Long Way Round. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe had this extraordinary love for Ukraine and the people we met. This invasion is so old-fashioned and stupid. The Russia of today was born in the [Bolshevik] revolution \u2013 there\u2019s a direct link to Putin. I\u2019m happy we\u2019re telling a story that\u2019s relevant.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n He\u2019s been telling on-screen stories since appearing in Dennis Potter\u2019s Lipstick on Your Collar in 1993. His career took off with Danny Boyle\u2019s Trainspotting in 1996 and went interstellar when he signed up to the Star Wars franchise. <\/span><\/p>\n (And, if George Lucas is reading, \u201cI\u2019d love to do another Star Wars movie.\u201d) <\/span><\/p>\n Born in Perth, McGregor long ago slipped the bonds of his upbringing \u2013 stardom is now his nationality. \u201cI left Scotland at 17 to go to drama school in London. I haven\u2019t lived in Britain since 2008, I\u2019ve been living in the States.\u201d When he first moved south, he sewed strips of McGregor tartan onto his denim jacket. Does he mourn his exile? <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt was hard to leave Scotland. There\u2019s a sense you\u2019re turning your back. People in Scotland to this day tell me to remember where I come from. I know where I come from! I don\u2019t need anybody to remind me. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s this feeling of you\u2019re not Scottish enough. I\u2019m Scottish wherever I am in the world. I\u2019m always Scottish!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n A Gentleman in Moscow is concerned with a similar exile, but also parental responsibility, as Rostov finds himself obliged to look after two young girls. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m so thick,\u201d says McGregor. \u201cI was halfway through the shooting and was like, \u2018Ah, this is a story about adoption.\u2019 I have adopted daughters. I know all about adoption.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n McGregor initially met his now 22-year-old daughter Jamyan in Mongolia in 2004, on that momentous Long Way Round trip. McGregor and his first wife, French-Greek production designer Eve Mavrakis, have three more daughters, Clara, 28, Esther, 22, and Anouk, 12, who is also adopted. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI know a lot about being a dad to girls,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ve played dads a lot, and the film I directed [2016\u2019s American Pastoral] is absolutely about a relationship between a father and his daughter. It wasn\u2019t a conscious decision, but not a coincidence, I\u2019m sure. I also have a little son, Laurie, who\u2019s two and a half. Maybe in 15 years, I\u2019ll start playing dads of sons.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Laurie\u2019s mother is the American actor Mary Elizabeth Winstead, McGregor\u2019s second wife and his co-star in A Gentleman in Moscow. She plays Soviet film siren Anna Urbanova, with whom the count gets romantically entangled. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s lovely to sit in the back of the car holding hands on the way to work. It was a great experience,\u201d he says. Much of the filming required parts of West Yorkshire and the North West to fill in for 1930s Moscow. So the family took a house at Alderley Edge in Cheshire, \u201cwhere all the footballers used to live\u201d.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Famously, the couple first met when making\u00a0 FX\u2019s Fargo in 2017. \u201cWe walked on set, we didn\u2019t know each other very well, and we just did the scene. It was like, instinctive. And five minutes later, everyone was looking at each other going, \u2018Oh, there it is. That\u2019s the scene.’\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n Within a year McGregor and Winstead had separated from their respective partners and moved in together. Such upheavals are seldom easy and Clara, then 22, called Winstead \u201ca piece of trash\u201d on Instagram. <\/span><\/p>\n Things have since calmed down. Last year Clara and McGregor made Bleeding Love together, a film about a father and daughter rebuilding their relationship. \u201cIt has,\u201d he says, \u201cbeen a great last couple of years.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n He has spent much of that time with his face hidden by Rostov\u2019s vast moustache. He looks very Russian, but doesn\u2019t sound it, opting instead for a pleasingly posh Scottish. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe weren\u2019t ever going to set out to do a Russian accent \u2013 it doesn\u2019t make any sense if we\u2019re all speaking English. Why are we speaking English to each other? So I just adopted that accent, which made him feel to me like somebody in the aristocracy. Without sounding like the queen.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In A Gentleman he moves from his 30s to his 60s. As he ages his posture changes, and breeding and bearing give way to something more fluid. <\/span><\/p>\n This lends a vaguely comic aspect to his performance, especially so in the bedroom scenes with Winstead. Still, no need for an intimacy co-ordinator if it\u2019s your real-life wife on the bed? <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cBut we did have an intimacy co-ordinator!\u201d McGregor exclaims. \u201cIt\u2019s still necessary, because it\u2019s also about the crew, and it\u2019s odd to be naked in front of people, it\u2019s odd to be intimate in front of the camera. If you were doing a dance scene, you\u2019d have a choreographer. It\u2019s an important part of the work now, because it\u2019s somebody that the director and actors meet in the middle<\/span>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n This means, for one thing, he doesn\u2019t have to worry about Clara and Esther, both actors. \u201cMy daughter [Esther] is 22. If an older, famous director goes to a 22-year-old and says, \u2018I want you to be naked in this scene,\u2019 that actress might feel, \u2018Oh, my God, I\u2019ve got to do it, my career might depend on it.\u2019 And then five years after that, she could look back and go, \u2018I wish I hadn\u2019t. Why am I naked in that scene? It\u2019s unnecessary.\u2019 <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNow there\u2019s somebody she talks to whose career doesn\u2019t rest on the shoulders of this person.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n He resists the suggestion that he\u2019s a brave actor. Wasn\u2019t playing gay sex scenes in the 2021 Netflix series Halston (for which he won an Emmy) brave? <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThat didn\u2019t seem risky, I just had to feel like Halston.\u201d He\u2019s long been a punchy contributor to public debate. In 2016 he tweeted that Boris Johnson was a \u201cspineless ****\u201d. In the same year he supported Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn when others were calling for him to go. Is he a Bolshevik? \u201cI just think actors have a right, like anyone else in society, to make a comment.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In October 2023, McGregor put his name to an appeal for a ceasefire in Gaza. \u201cI\u2019m very confused, it\u2019s a very confusing situation there,\u201d he says. \u201cI feel terrible about what happened; what started it [the 7 October Hamas attack] was absolutely barbaric and awful. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cBut also, the response by Netanyahu\u2026 the horrific casualties.\u201d Perhaps affected by the fact that he and Mavrakis raised their daughters in the Jewish faith, he balances his sympathies. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t claim to have a solution to the situation in Israel. I think the Jews need somewhere to call their own. So it\u2019s a hugely complicated situation, obviously. But the killing of civilians is completely out of hand. That\u2019s not right.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n His distress at such injustices is palpable, but so is his pleasure in an industry that is safe for his daughters to work in. \u201cThere are many things that are inclusive and right, the whole boys\u2019 club aspect of it is gone. I\u2019m very relieved.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n Before we spoke, Paramount Plus sent a list of spoilers to avoid, but the big reveal, as obvious as the moustache on the cover of this RT, might be McGregor\u2019s hard-earned maturity as a man and actor of real gravitas. Of course he knew how to play Rostov.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n A Gentleman in Moscow will debut on Friday 29th March on\u00a0Paramount Plus<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong>Visit our\u00a0TV Guide<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Streaming Guide<\/a>\u00a0or take a look at the rest of our\u00a0Drama<\/a>\u00a0coverage.<\/strong><\/p>\n Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only \u00a310 \u2013\u00a0<\/strong>subscribe now<\/strong><\/a>. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to\u00a0<\/strong>The Radio Times Podcast<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n The actor plays Count Alexander Rostov in the new Paramount Plus drama. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":48037,"template":"","categories":[1,5],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/03\/ewan-mcgregor-on-fatherhood-and-starring-alongside-his-wife-in-a-gentleman-in-moscow-scaled.jpg",2560,1707,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/03\/ewan-mcgregor-on-fatherhood-and-starring-alongside-his-wife-in-a-gentleman-in-moscow-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/03\/ewan-mcgregor-on-fatherhood-and-starring-alongside-his-wife-in-a-gentleman-in-moscow-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/03\/ewan-mcgregor-on-fatherhood-and-starring-alongside-his-wife-in-a-gentleman-in-moscow-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/03\/ewan-mcgregor-on-fatherhood-and-starring-alongside-his-wife-in-a-gentleman-in-moscow-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/03\/ewan-mcgregor-on-fatherhood-and-starring-alongside-his-wife-in-a-gentleman-in-moscow-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/03\/ewan-mcgregor-on-fatherhood-and-starring-alongside-his-wife-in-a-gentleman-in-moscow-2048x1365.jpg",2048,1365,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"The actor plays Count Alexander Rostov in the new Paramount Plus drama.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/48036"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Ewan](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2024\/02\/AGIM101090323BB0180RT-55efac8.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413\" "\\"A")
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