THE INSIDE STORY ON...
A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW HOTEL HI-JINKS
For Ewan McGregor, the chance to play the title role in Paramount’s period piece opposite his reallife wife proved too alluring to pass up. Based on Amor Towles’s 2016 bestseller, the eightpart historical drama set after the Russian Revolution stars Ewan as Count Alexander Rostov, an aristocrat whose life is spared by Communists because he’s attributed with the authorship of an important historical poem. Instead, the Bolsheviks sentence him to house arrest for life in Moscow’s upmarket Hotel Metropol.
Towles was inspired to write the book after staying at a luxury hotel in Geneva where some guests were permanent residents, and he combined this with his knowledge of Russia’s tradition of house arrest. Ewan was bowled over by the story. ‘I read the novel and it was the most amazing experience,’ says the Star Wars actor, who turns 53 at Easter. ‘It’s about the Count coming to terms with his imprisonment over time. What helps is he befriends a cheeky, funny girl called
Nina and she opens up the life of the hotel to him in an amazing way.’ Nina has a master key to all the hotel’s doors which leads the pair into all sorts of adventures, and Ewan and 12-year-old actress Alexa Goodall, who plays Nina, forged a close bond during the shoot.
‘I helped Ewan learn his lines,’ says Alexa. ‘And as he lives mainly in America I introduced him to Greggs, treating him to a steak bake with a candle for his birthday. What every Hollywood A-lister desires, right?’
The story also sees the Count interact with a succession of strange hotel residents, and enjoy an affair with actress Anna Urbanova, played by Ewan’s second wife Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Ewan and Mary married in 2022 after meeting on Fargo’s third series in 2017, and have a two-year-old son, Laurie.
‘It was perfect to play this romance with my wife,’ says Ewan. ‘It doesn’t get better than that. The writing is heartbreaking and their relationship is so baffling to the Count.’ The Hotel Metropol’s interior was built in a Manchester studio, and visual effects re-created Moscow’s Red Square. Ewan says: ‘It was like we were in Russia. When you step off set and open a door it’s a shock when you’re in Manchester, in a car park!’
From Friday, Paramount+