How Ewan McGregor was cast in Trainspotting
'He shaved off all his hair. His agent must have been livid': how Ewan McGregor was cast in Trainspotting In 1995, Ewan McGregor was quickly being positioned as the film industry's latest wholesome, romantic lead – the next Mr Darcy, if you were to ask his agent. So how did he end up as the lead in Danny Boyle's filthy, anarchic ode to heroin, Trainspotting? Jay Glennie By the summer of 1995, Danny Boyle's adaptation of Irvine Welsh's novel Trainspotting was gathering steam and Boyle was in the thick of casting, looking for the ideal actors to play Sick Boy, Spud, Begbie, Tommy, Diane and, of course, Renton, the film's main character. For Boyle and his partners at Figment films, screenwriter John Hodge and producer Andrew Macdonald, one name immediately sprang to mind. A young actor, Ewan McGregor, had starred in their previous film, Shallow Grave, and Boyle reckoned he might be the lead to carry their ambitious new project.
But was McGregor, whose agent had taken to describing as the next Mr Darcy, too clean-cut for the role of a heroin addict? In the below extract from Jay Glennie's new oral history of Trainspotting, Glennie describes, with first-hand interviews with Boyle, McGregor and the cast and crew of the film, how Trainspotting eventually settled on its leading man.
To aid Figment in their pursuit of finding the right faces to bring to life Irvine Welsh's characters, they pulled in Gail Stevens.
Danny Boyle had worked with the casting director at the Royal Court and shared the same ethos borne out of their time there, that being: any actor can play any role, which, Stevens said, "frees you up to be inventive with your choices".
Boyle is fulsome in his praise for Stevens, calling her "a genius at her job".
She sent out the call and with immediate effect the office began to fill up with head shots and CVs from agents.
"Danny is never looking for a name. He always wants the best actor for the part, irrespective of what they have done before," reported Stevens.
One name who was immediately in the frame was Ewan McGregor.
Shallow Grave was showing at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah and in attendance that cold January, 1995, with Boyle, producer Andrew Macdonald and screenwriter John Hodge, was McGregor. "It was my first trip to America. I had been once as a child but this was my first trip as an adult – well as a sort of adult!" McGregor laughingly recalled.
They asked him to read over Hodge's first draft screenplay. "McGregor's stock was really rising and the great relationship we built up from Shallow Grave made it feel right he would be a part of Trainspotting," said Boyle.
On paper, McGregor was not anybody's idea of the character Welsh had invented, but messing with perceptions chimed with the fun evident in Welsh's novel. Hodge's screenplay as written had Renton as the lead character, and for that they needed a leading man, one who could carry the film. They wanted Ewan McGregor as their Renton.
"It was a believer thing," states Boyle. "You had to be a believer in the film, a believer in the novel. It could not just be another film. The three of us, John, Andrew and I, were believers. We wanted to surround ourselves with fellow believers."
Was Ewan McGregor a believer?
"This is the film people are waiting to see," declared Macdonald as he passed McGregor the first draft screenplay. McGregor himself recalled the "bastards" handing him the script and asking him to go away and read it but "on the understanding there was no presumption that I would be in the film".
They were testing their desired leading man: how far would he be willing to go? Boyle recalled McGregor's agent at the time had him set to be the next "Darcy", the next romantic and heroic figure; would he be willing to buck that path and travel a different route? Taking the script, McGregor started reading it on the return flight to Los Angeles and his immediate thought was, "I've got to play this part."
Also leaving Sundance holding the Trainspotting draft was Film4 producer Allon Reich. On the hour or so flight to Denver, where he was to meet his wife who was visiting family, he read John Hodge's new work. As soon as the adaptation had been mooted, Reich had picked up Welsh's source novel, finding his way in by reading it aloud on the Northern Line on his way into work. Like the screenwriter he too had wondered if Hodge could pull a screenplay from the book.
"He had and then some," recalled the Film4 executive. "I remember the blast I felt. I was completely lost in it and I couldn't believe what I had read. He had made Irvine's book accessible but in no way had he 'vanillarised' it. Film4 was always hot on scripts. Scripts came first and John Hodge had nailed it and I knew that with Danny's genius on top we had something very special. I literally skipped down the steps to the tarmac."
McGregor had also caught the rush and as soon as his flight landed he called the trio and told them that he was going to play Renton.
"Give me a couple of months and I'll be ready."
"And," reported Boyle, "that's what he did. He basically said, 'Hey, this is mine!' and fucked off and we waited to see if he could lose the weight."
McGregor was determined to play Renton. Picking up Welsh's novel he was immediately "sucked in. Like all great writers he creates absolute worlds with the beautiful way he puts words together and you're immersed in it. He pushes the boundaries and places the reader into extremes. I loved the book so much. Because I had read the script first I read it in a unique way."
McGregor felt that Renton was the "most amazing part. I knew it would be something special." He gave no thought of the effect of playing Renton would have on his career trajectory; his only concern was "getting him right".
Hodge had his reservations. He just could not see how the 12-stone actor, the poster boy of health and vitality, could transform into the heroin addict, Renton. McGregor was determined to prove he was the right choice. He was set to fly to Hong Kong to film The Pillow Book (1996) for Peter Greenaway and worked out a dietary plan, which included cutting out drinking beer and eating dairy products to achieve the required weight loss and also began his research.
Born in Crieff, Scotland, McGregor left school aged 16, with the determination to become an actor, like his uncle Denis Lawson. His journey began when he found a position working backstage at the Perth Repertory Theatre. As ever extras were always required and McGregor gained his first professional experience in such a role in A Passage To India. In 1989, six months after that stage appearance, he auditioned for the Guildhall School Of Speech And Drama. His first screen role soon beckoned with the television adaptation of Dennis Potter's Lipstick On Your Collar in 1993.
"I had had the experience of working with Danny, Andrew and John on Shallow Grave," McGregor remembered fondly. "It was my first movie after working on Lipstick On Your Collar and other pieces of TV. I perhaps didn't appreciate it as we were doing it, because it was my first movie, but I had had such a great time and it was an amazing working experience."
McGregor's dream of emulating his uncle had come true. Greenaway's The Pillow Book had continued its location shoot in Luxembourg. Sunday was McGregor's day off and he had been informed that the train station close to their location in Luxembourg harboured many of the city's drug addicts. He made a beeline for it. Grabbing a coffee and a bite to eat he would spend his Sunday's observing, completely in keeping with Renton; he allowed life to orbit around him. And, like Renton, he too wanted something. He set his sights on one guy in particular.
"The stooped posture I took for Renton is the exact rip-off of a guy in Luxembourg," McGregor recalled.
By the time Ewan McGregor returned from working with Peter Greenaway, he had devoured Irvine Welsh's book and, more importantly, had begun to lose weight for the upcoming role. Looking closely at The Pillow Book, you can see in certain scenes McGregor looks noticeably slimmer. By adhering to a strict calorie count and cutting out beer he had lost a staggering 26 pounds over the two months since he had last seen Boyle, Macdonald and Hodge.
The McGregor who turned up at their London offices for the agreed meeting shocked his director. Boyle recalled "Renton appearing. He was fucking Renton. He was as skinny as fuck."
An astounded Boyle asked his star how the hell he had transformed himself.
His trademark smile still present and in place, McGregor laughingly replied, "Easy: I grilled everything, stopped drinking beer, drank lots of gin instead and the weight just fucking fell off!"
With his passion to play the role, McGregor saw it as something "that had to be done. Renton was living a life on heroin, so he wasn't going to be a beefcake."
During their research, Boyle actually recalled that the addicts they met came in "all shapes and sizes. But you go with the stick-thin, artificial version, which Ewan achieved – since that is the conceived idea of a heroin addict."
"Once the casting was announced I recall there was definitely some objection that Ewan had been cast as Renton," said Macdonald. "But they were missing the point. Our Renton had to be appealing but also have that edge that Ewan has and the acting chops. He was our only choice."
"It was Ewan's statement of intent," declared Boyle.
Macdonald, Hodge and Boyle finally offered him the part. A jubilant actor left the meeting and within a few minutes returned.
With the gig confirmed and to complete his transformation into Renton, McGregor had actually bought a set of clippers and leaving the offices he shot around the corner and shaved his hair off!
"I just shaved my hair off; pretty fucking brutal! I returned with a shaven head. It was literally the only fucking role for me."
A laughing Boyle "couldn't fucking believe it! He had shaved off all his hair. Not a George Clooney cool and attractive crop but a fucking brutal down-to-the-skin shave that obviously looked like he'd done it himself. It shows you how committed he was but his agent at the time must have been fucking livid!"
"We had our Renton," announced Macdonald.
Trainspotting by Jay Glennie (Coattail Publications, from £120) is available to pre-order now.
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