Ewan McGregor’s embarrassing first meeting with Robert De Niro: “It was mortifying”
Ewan McGregor is part of the exclusive league of Scottish acting royalty, starring in gritty cult classics like Trainspotting and Moulin Rouge, as well as the iconic Star Wars sequel films as Obi-Wan Kenobi. Despite finding commercial success through his work with George Lucas, he has worked with many other auteurs and trailblazing directors, such as Mike Mills, Todd Haynes and Tim Burton, as well as reprising the role of Danny Torrance in the sequel to The Shining.
Through his vast experience in the industry through heartfelt independent dramas and dark satires, the actor has established himself as a key player in Hollywood and representative of the North, as well as branching out in recent years to try his hand at directing with the 2016 film American Pastoral. However, while it is hard to imagine that the actor would be phased by anyone in the industry and all too familiar with the experience of brushing with the stars, McGregor described one encounter with an iconic actor that left him feeling less than cool.
When working in the film business, you become very familiar with regular run-ins with people who are more famous or established than you are, with the faces of countless celebrities being scattered across films and billboards everywhere that remind you of the endless Hollywood stars around you. However, this would not stop you from having your own personal heroes and people you look up to, and even movie stars find themselves being star-struck sometimes and eager to make a good impression on someone they admire.
For McGregor, the actor first met an acting legend while performing a slightly mediocre and unimpressive stunt, later expressing his mortification at meeting Robert De Niro while filming Revenge of the Sith in London.
De Niro is known for monumentally successful roles in films like Raging Bull, Taxi Driver and Casino, becoming a regular collaborator of Martin Scorsese and building a lifelong creative partnership that has defined cinema as we know it. However, this rattled McGregor when the actor paid a visit to the Star Wars set to meet fellow friend George Lucas.
When describing this, McGregor explained the less-than-favourable circumstances of the meeting, saying, “One funny moment stands out: we were reshooting parts of the lava fight from Revenge of the Sith in London. We stood on these rotating discs to simulate movement, and there were two guys under us spinning the discs. It didn’t look tough at all—definitely not very Jedi-like! Then someone said, ‘Robert De Niro’s coming in today’. And sure enough, as I spun around, there he was, sitting with George Lucas, watching us. Years later, I told De Niro how embarrassing it was. He just chuckled, but it was mortifying in the moment”.
While McGregor definitely has more impressive stunts than standing on a rotating disc, it is far from mortifying. I can perhaps understand the appeal of being seen doing something dangerously extreme when in the presence of a true great like De Niro.
