Cineplex Magazine January 2012

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Haywire Hits tHeatres JaNUarY 20 tH 22 | Cineplex Magazine | january 2012 Ewan McGregor as the shady Kenneth in Haywire
A Force to be reckoned With Ewan McGregor has three movies in theatres over the next three months, including the 3D re-release of 1999’s Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace. All these years later, it’s clear the man just can’t be typecast n By marNI wEIsz hen Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace returns to theatres next month (with a fresh new layer of 3D magic) it will serve as a reminder of where Ewan McGregor’s career could have ground to a halt, but didn’t. It’s been 13 years since the first film of George Lucas’s prequel trilogy debuted with the Scottish actor playing the younger version of one of the most iconic characters in film history, Obi-Wan Kenobi, originally played by one of the most iconic actors in film history, Sir Alec Guinness. Back then, it felt like there may be no turning back for McGregor. Would moviegoers be able to see him as anything but a Jedi? Turns out they could. Mention McGregor and people are as likely to think of his breakthrough role as a heroin addict in Trainspotting (1996), his vocal efforts in the 2001 musical Moulin Rouge! or even his marathon motorcycle trip for BBC TV’s Long Way Down in 2007. Credit for escaping the Star Wars juggernaut goes to the actor and his film choices — while they haven’t all been winners, he rarely treads the same ground twice. This year alone McGregor will appear in four diverse new films: This month’s Haywire is a violent thriller, March’s Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is a romantic comedy with political undercurrents, June’s Jack the Giant Killer is a modern-day fairy tale and later this year he’ll star in The Impossible, a drama based on the tsunami that devastated South Asia in 2004. On this day, the boyish 40-year-old is in Toronto to talk about Salmon Fishing. The film casts McGregor as Fred Jones, a by-the-books marine biologist working for the British Department of Fisheries and Agriculture. When a rich Yemeni Sheikh (Egyptian actor Amr Waked) decides he wants to introduce salmon fishing to his Middle Eastern country, a PR flack (Kristin Scott Thomas) for the British Prime Minister sees an opportunity to create a good-news story and distract from a recent political disaster. Against his wishes, Jones — who thinks the idea is ridiculous — is forced to make good on the Sheikh’s dream. In the process he bonds not only with the Sheikh, but also the Sheikh’s lovely assistant (Emily Blunt). “I enjoyed very much the political aspect of it, this satirical element of the script, this idea of spinning, and everything being washed before it’s in the media. It’s covered in political thumbprints of what they want us to feel about it,” says McGregor. With a fauxhawk that leans, like a ski slope, over to the right side of his head, McGregor is bright-eyed and energetic this morning, even though Salmon Fishing had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival the night before, followed by an after party. Directed by Lasse Hallström, the film was shot in Morocco — not Yemen, for security reasons and because Morocco has a better filmindustry infrastructure — in the summer of 2010, just a few months before the Middle East was thrown into the chaos of the Arab Spring. Yemen was one of the first countries to join the uprising. Was McGregor more interested in Yemen than in other Arab countries as he watched events unfold? “Not so much,” he CONTINUED january 2012 | Cineplex Magazine | 23
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Cineplex Magazine January 2012

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