‘Awards Chatter’ Live Pod: Ewan McGregor on ‘A Gentleman in Moscow,’ Re-Evaluation of His ‘Star Wars’ Movies and ‘Trainspotting’ Turning 30

Ewan McGregor, the guest on this episode of The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, which was recorded in front of an audience at the Newport Beach Film Festival, has been one of the world’s most admired screen actors for some 30 years.

The Scotsman, 53, shot to stardom in 1995’s Trainspotting, and has since done standout work in films such as 1998’s Velvet Goldmine, George Lucas’ second Star Wars trilogy (1999-2005), 2001’s Moulin Rouge!, 2003’s Big Fish, 2010’s The Ghost Writer, 2011’s Beginners and 2012’s The Impossible, and on TV limited series including Fargo (2017), Halston (2021) and Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022).

But rarely, if ever, has McGregor’s work generated the degree of enthusiasm — from critics and the general public alike — that he has garnered for his performance in the 2024 Paramount+ limited series A Gentleman in Moscow, a dramedy in which he plays Count Alexander “Sasha” Rostov, an aristocrat whose life is upended by the Russian Revolution, and who is sentenced to spend the rest of his days within the walls of the historic Metropol Hotel. It was in recognition of this performance that NBFF decided to honor him with its TV Performance of the Year Award.

When McGregor first burst on to the scene in the 1990s, The New York Times declared, “Not since Daniel Day-Lewis and Gary Oldman has Britain produced such a chameleon. Producers and directors say he has that ineffable star quality; some say he is the most interesting actor to come out of Scotland since Sean Connery.” In the words of The Hollywood Reporter, he quickly became “the poster boy for a generation.” Ranked among the 100 greatest movie stars of all time in surveys conducted by Empire and Britain’s Channel 4, Esquire described him in 2016 as “among the most important and least predictable film actors of his age.”

On this episode, McGregor reflects on his rollercoaster relationship with filmmaker Danny Boyle; his inner-conflict over whether or not to do Star Wars; why, in recent years, he has increasingly gravitated toward TV limited series, generally, and to A Gentleman in Moscow, specifically; plus much more.