EWAN & POOH BEAT THE ODDS
The lovable bear plays mentor to Ewan Mcgregor’s character as he faces a midlife crisis in Christopher Robin, based on A.A. Milne’s tales inspired by his own son
EWAN MCGREGOR HAS such a vivid imagination that he can act scenes with co-stars who aren’t even there. That’s a useful talent to have, especially when said co-stars have names like Eeyore, Kanga and Winnie the Pooh.
“It’s a skill I learned while working on Star Wars,” Mcgregor said.
That would be when he played Obi-wan Kenobi, the young version of the character played by Alec Guinness in the original film, in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (1999), Star Wars: Attack of the Clones (2002) and Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (2005).
There’s much less derring-do in Christopher Robin, in which he plays the grown-up version of the character A.A. Milne modelled on his own son, Christopher Robin Milne, in a series of books written nearly a century ago. The comedy/adventure costars Hayley Atwell as Robin’s wife, along with such voice talents as Jim Cummings, Brad Garrett, Toby Jones and Sophie Okonedo. The film is currently running in UAE theatres.
To prepare for his scenes opposite stuffed animals, Mcgregor had some help from director Marc Forster.
“Marc hired a little gang of actors from drama school to play the characters during rehearsals,” he said.
“They’d be holding a stuffed version of their creatures and manipulating them while saying their lines. That made the scenes really real for me. Then I’d do takes without them.”
Christopher’s journey
The film starts with 7-year-old Christopher Robin leaving the 100 Acre Woods, saying goodbye to his friends and going off to boarding school.
“There’s a montage of him growing up over the next 40 years,” Mcgregor said. “You see him bullied at school, going to college and meeting his wife, getting married and having a baby.
“Then he goes to war,” the actor continued. “When he comes back, you get a sense his relationship with his wife is strained. He’s somewhat shut off, and he’s distanced from his child.
“At that time men didn’t really express their feelings to anybody,” Mcgregor added.
“He’s drifting. He doesn’t enjoy his work. He has a terrible responsibility of trying to save many people’s jobs.”
At his lowest moment, however, Robin reconnects with Winnie the Pooh, who helps him figure out what’s important and what isn’t.
“By spending time with Pooh and his old buddies, the creatures, he finds his way to solving not only the problem at his company but his own unhappiness,” Mcgregor said. “He finds his way back to his family as the place of priority in his life. I do think the film speaks to someone who has lost his way.”
I just follow my instincts. I’m inspired by stories I haven’t told or characters I haven’t played. I never strived to play Hollywood heroes.”
Ewan Mcgregor
Midlife crisis
Is Christopher Robin experiencing a midlife crisis? Maybe, but Mcgregor – who at 47 is about the same age as his character – doesn’t think that midlife crises are limited to midlife. “I’ve been having them since I as 20, with different projects and adventures and convertibles,” he said. “I still love getting on the open road and taking off, even if I’m just going to Whole Foods. I really enjoy getting there.”
Mcgregor sounded like a kid, but insisted that the impression was misleading. “I feel my age,” he said. “I’m different from the way I was when I was younger. I was frenetic in my youth, but I don’t feel that anymore.
“I feel my maturity,” the actor continued. “I’m quite content. I feel happy. Ask me in three years, when I turn 50.”
Mcgregor’s happiness revolves around acting, to which he was drawn as a boy, growing up as the younger son of two teachers in Crieff, Scotland.
“I was a bit of a dreamer,” he recalled. “I did a lot of playing on my own. I spent a lot of time in the garden. I was always outside playing with my action men, thinking up stories.”
Mcgregor has evidence to prove it. “The other day I was cleaning out drawers in my old house in London,” he said, “and I found some pictures I’d taken of a police motorbike crash with my action man. I took photos from different angles. Another set of pictures showed an action man hanging from a parachute in a tree.
“Here I am in a profession where we set up scenes and we shoot them from different angles and try to tell a story.”
Career choices
Mcgregor foray into acting started by enrolling in the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, studying alongside Daniel Craig, among others. He left during his third year in order to play a foreignaffairs analyst in a British television mini-series, Lipstick on Your Collar (1993).
Then director Danny Boyle hired him to play a journalist in
Shallow Grave (1994), a drug addict in Trainspotting (1996) and a janitor-turned-hostage-taker in A Life Less Ordinary (1997).
Mcgregor’s career has been filled with eclectic choices. He played an uninhibited American rock star in Velvet Goldmine (1998) and a poet who falls in love with a courtesan in the musical Moulin Rouge (2001). In
Black Hawk Down (2001) he was a US Ranger fighting in Somalia and, in the romantic comedy Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011), a fisheries expert.
“I just follow my instincts,” Mcgregor said.
“I’m inspired by stories I haven’t told or characters I haven’t played. I never strived to play Hollywood heroes.”
I was a bit of a dreamer. I did a lot of playing on my own. I spent a lot of time in the garden. I was always outside playing with my action men, thinking up stories.”
Ewan Mcgregor
Playing Obi-wan Kenobi
The closest Mcgregor has come to superstardom was playing Obi-wan Kenobi. Lately there have been rumours of a standalone Star Wars movie focused on Obi-wan, with Mcgregor returning to the role.
He denied any knowledge of such a project, though.
“I’d love to play Obi-wan again,” he said.
“I feel there would be a good story to tell that would bridge the gap between me and Alec
Guinness, but it hasn’t been said to me that it’s going to happen.
“Since the last film came out,” he said, referring to Solo: A Star Wars Story, “there has been a rethinking going on. I think they know I’d be happy to do it.”
Should he get the call, Mcgregor would need to brush up on his lightsaber skills.
“I have my own lightsaber,” he said.
“I asked the prop man to make me one, and we took it out the back door of the studio. I think it’s in storage.
“If I go to somebody’s house and the kids have lightsabers,” Mcgregor added, “I’ll show them a few spins, things I remember. It doesn’t take much to impress a 5-year-old.” Nancy Mills, The New York Times Syndicate