A portrait of a dutiful daughter with Dad... but behind it lies a very uneasy truce in feud that’s split Ewan’s family
As McGregor and his girl Clara are seen together in public for the first time since he left his wife for younger actress...
WEARING a sheer Fendi dress and cream boots, Clara McGregor was all smiles as she walked arm in arm with her father on the red carpet at the premiere of his latest movie last week.
But for the 22-year-old eldest daughter of one of the world’s most recognisable actors, Star Wars and Trainspotting star Ewan McGregor, it was more than just a rite of passage – their rare public appearance together marked a significant thawing in relations between the pair after months of mounting tension.
They have barely been on speaking terms since her father, 47, left her French production designer mum, Eve Mavrakis, 51, in October for his much younger Fargo co-star Mary Elizabeth Winstead.
The fall-out has proved particularly testing for the notoriously private McGregor, who has always been fiercely protective of his family and refused to discuss them in public. Not least because two of his daughters – Clara and Esther – are ardent social media users and have been sharing the family travails with millions through a series of barbed postings and emotional outpourings about the break-up.
Then, last weekend, as if to deliver a coup de grace to her Perthshireborn father, Clara, a photographer who graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in December, stripped off for Playboy magazine.
She even gave fans a sneak preview, posting: ‘Good morning good after and good night and THANK YOU PLAYBOY.’
The silence from her father about the raunchy shoot has been deafening. Yet he is a well-known supporter of feminism.
Last year, he was due to appear on Good Morning Britain to discuss the Trainspotting sequel. But he refused to do so as he did not agree with host Piers Morgan’s disparaging comments about the Women’s March against Donald Trump.
MORGAN was criticised for suggesting the protests following Mr Trump’s inauguration were ‘vacuous’ and attracted ‘rabid feminists’.
Although often vocal in his praise of Clara’s achievements behind the camera, McGregor appears to have opted for the ‘ignore it and it might go away’ approach to the Playboy shoot.
Insiders say Clara and her father have only been able to find a way forward in their fractured relationship in recent weeks because she has taken the same view of his romance with 33-year-old Miss Winstead – by opting to ‘ignore’ it.
If last week’s events are anything to go by, McGregor appears to have accepted a reconciliation on Clara’s terms for the time being, keeping both women well apart.
Turning up with Clara at the Tribeca Film Festival premiere of his movie Zoe at the BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Centre in New York on Sunday, there was no sign of Miss Winstead.
A mere 24 hours later, it was a very different scenario. He was back at the same event – this time hand in hand with his new love for the premiere of her latest film, All About Nina. Clara has recently spoken of her coping strategy for dealing with the pain of her parents’ split. In an interview with BLVD magazine in February, she said: ‘I always remind myself how lucky I am, and how fortunate I am, and that there are so many people suffering in the world.’
In October, after photographs appeared of her father kissing Miss Winstead in a London café, she posted a snap of her mum with McGregor cropped out of the shot, saying: ‘How frickin gorgeous is my mama?? Strongest, smartest, most loving woman I know. My rock.’
Last month, she shared a throwback to her parents in happier times, the then couple posing for a portrait with Clara as a baby in Nice.
Wishful thinking, clearly, as it coincided with an apparent temporary ‘cooling off’ in the romance between McGregor and Miss Winstead, with her saying she didn’t want to be seen as a ‘marriage wrecker’.
But the declaration by the actress, who starred in Scott Pilgrim vs the World and 10 Cloverfield Lane, was short-lived. Within days, it emerged the pair were still together when he visited her on a movie set.
Not one to be overshadowed by her older sister, budding musician Esther, 16, also penned a poignant song about forgiveness and heartbreak. Belting out Made You A Man and posting it on Instagram, she appears to allude to her family dramas: ‘I read some dumb s**t that I found online... Seeing those pictures... They’re making me cry.’
LAST December, clearly angered by news of the couple’s split, a friend of Miss Mavrakis posted on Instagram: ‘I can’t believe Ewan would end things with u for that cheap w**re! U are so much better than him !!!! Take him for every penny u can !!!! ’
To which Miss Mavrakis – with whom McGregor has two other daughters, Jamiyan, 16, adopted from Mongolia, and seven-year-old Anouk – replied: ‘What can I do?’
Until then, the world had believed that the couple had one of the strongest marriages in Hollywood. They met on the set of British TV show Kavanagh QC when rising star Ewan appeared in an episode and she was assistant art director.
The couple married in the summer of 1995, only six months after the episode aired. Clara was born in February 1996 – the same month Trainspotting was released.
Danny Boyle’s film sent McGregor’s career into the stratosphere. In consequence, Clara enjoyed an unusually itinerant childhood as the family followed him on location around the world, finally settling in LA when she was 12. According to friends, Clara has always made it clear she did not have a glamorous, celebrityfilled upbringing. The most showbiz element was her education, at the liberal, arts-focused Crossroads, a private school in Santa Monica whose alumni include Kate Hudson and Gwyneth Paltrow.
The pain of the marriage break-up has been all the more profound for the McGregor clan as, in December 2016, they had welcomed Miss Winstead into their home for dinner before shooting on the third series of Fargo. They laughed at the time but, in a moment of prescience, the actress is said to have revealed having had a crush on McGregor when she was younger.
By May, both actors – who played an engaged couple in the series – had apparently taken the decision their own marriages were over. Mary’s separation and divorce from Riley Stearns came first – but it was the revelation that the McGregors’ marriage was over too that caused the biggest sensation.
Last December, Miss Mavrakis posted a shot of herself and her daughters on holiday in Cancun, Mexico, on Instagram. She captioned it: ‘This will be our Christ-
I always remind myself how fortunate I am
mas/New Year card. Happy 2018! I am so thankful for my loving, caring girls. Happy, peaceful and adventurous New 2018 to all my friends and family. With love...’
When McGregor raised eyebrows at January’s Golden Globes by thanking both his wife and his new love in an awkward acceptance speech after winning an award for Fargo, his wife was unimpressed.
ASKED in the hours afterwards about her feelings on him mentioning both her and his girlfriend in the same breath, she reportedly snapped: ‘I did not like his speech.’ Whether it is a mid-life crisis, as has been suggested, or lasting love remains to be seen. But like it or not, it is clear McGregor has entered a strange new world where he is treading on eggshells to maintain his relationship with Miss Mavrakis and his daughters.
For so long they have been his rock – he’s been a dad as long as he’s been a celebrity and has a massive tattoo with all their names on his upper arm and shoulder.
He has spoken of his belief in oldfashioned parenting: ‘When it comes to my kids, there are a few simple values I cherish, the same as my parents – what’s wrong, what’s right, kindness, a solid culture and good manners.
‘I recognise it can be boring to play with young children – to tell a story over and over again – but the secret is being there. Don’t be looking through papers or sneaking off to the computer, lose yourself in their world.’
He has also said Clara’s departure from home in 2015 to go to college in New York, where she has her own apartment in SoHo, inspired his directing debut.
In American Pastoral, he plays the father of a young woman who becomes a terrorist in the 1960s. He said: ‘I told Clara she’d taught me everything I needed to know to play this part and to direct this movie.’
But Clara’s decision to extend the olive branch now has come at a price. She has found herself being trolled, particularly by those who think McGregor has acted like a cad to the mother of his children.
When she proudly posted two pictures from the Zoe premiere on Instagram, they received a number of cruel comments that referenced her dad leaving her mum.
One joked about Clara, who has been taking acting lessons as well as juggling a growing number of modelling assignments, selling herself ‘for 30 coins like Judas’.
But others defended her, with one writing: ‘So good to see you and your dad together again... Don’t listen to the haters,.’
Another wrote: ‘Family always, family first.’
It’s a sentiment McGregor’s girls are taking very public steps to ensure he doesn’t forget.