On the night he receives the Outstanding Contribution To Film And Television award from BAFTA Scotland it may seem odd for Ewan McGregor to be talking about giving up acting, but when you qualify that statement with the fact that the reason is so he can stay at home with wife Mary Elizabeth Winstead then it’s somewhat understandable. On a night that saw McGregor handed the award by his uncle Denis Lawson (Wedge Antilles) while David Tennant (Huyang) and Mary Elizabeth (Hera Syndulla) looked on, it was a very good night for lovers of all things GFFA (provided E-wan Kenobi doesn’t follow through on his words and become a stay-at-home-Jedi).
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“I just want to thank you all so much and BAFTA Scotland, but it would be remiss of me not to thank my amazing and beautiful wife, Mary. You have made me want to give up acting because I don’t like to go away from you. I don’t want to leave you. That’s why I love to work with you so much. I’ve been lucky enough to do it three times and I want to do it more and more. Mary and I are now here in Scotland. So to save us the pain of having to be apart, maybe you can come up with lots of Scottish films that we can be in together.”
Ewan went on to recall an encounter in Glasgow that would prove to be a painful but useful motivation later in his career.
“I’d been in Glasgow with some mates and I got beaten up by a guy. He got on the train a bit drunk, and he knocked into a pole that you hold on to. I just thought I was being funny and went, ‘mind the pole, mate.’ When we got off the train he and his pals were following us down the platform and then he punched me – I was down, I was bleeding. I got up and I started to run and had this extraordinary experience of being punched while running from behind, which I didn’t know you could even do. Anyway I had to try and remember these lines for a play and my uncle Denis said to me ‘Remember when you got beaten up in Glasgow? I want you to think about it and how it made you feel.’ You know, the pain of it, but also the humiliation of it and it all helped me do that speech. So I’d like to thank that guy who punched me.”
After the ceremony Ewan discussed which projects people bring up with him most often with BAFTA Scotland.
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