Fargo
Season 3 M-Net (*101) 21:30 Drama
Ewan McGregor is the newest bigscreen actor to hit the TV screen, but he’s not doing it the easy way in dark-comedy drama Fargo (2014-current). He plays parking lot mogul Emmit Stussy and his lowly bailbondsman twin Ray. “Vocally there’s little difference,” he says. “Physically they’re very different. Once I put on Emmit’s spanx, I’m Emmit. And once I’m in Ray’s cowboy boots, I’m Ray.”
1 The 46-year-old Scot dropped out of prep school at 16 to study acting – and his teacher parents Carol and James were okay with it. “My kids know the story and my eldest wanted to drop out to be a photographer. I thought, ‘What do I do now?’ But luckily my wife immediately said, ‘No!’” 2 He’s been married to Greek-French movie designer Eve Mavrakis since 1995 and they have four girls: Clara (21), Esther (15), Anouk (6) and Jamyan (15), whom they adopted. Ewan met her as a four-year-old while he was working in Mongolia as a UNICEF ambassador. 3 Playing Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequels (1999-2005) “was my destiny,” jokes Ewan. His uncle Denis Lawson was fighter pilot Wedge Antilles in the first movies (1977-1983) and Ewan modelled his acting mannerisms on Sir Alec Guinness, who played Obi Wan in the first three Star Wars. Acting isn’t the only thing he gets 4 a kick from – Ewan and his friend Charley Boorman rode their motorbikes over 25 000km from John O’Groats in north Scotland to Cape Town in 2007 for their TV doccie Long Way Down. 5 Ewan jokes that voicing candlestick Lumiere in 2017 live-action Beauty & The Beast is by far his toughest role. “He’s French but I sounded too Mexican. I had to redo most of my lines!”