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Rise to Fame
He got his first break from Danny Boyle in Shallow Grave, but Trainspotting in 1996 was the one that mattered. Playing heroin addict Mark Renton made him a face people wanted to watch. He almost didn't take the Star Wars prequel role, reportedly unsure whether an "urban grunge" actor fit George Lucas's galaxy. He took it anyway, spent six years as young Obi-Wan Kenobi, and made the part work even when the films around him didn't.
In the Spotlight
Disney+ revived the Obi-Wan chapter in 2022, and the response was hard to argue with. The miniseries pulled 6.5 billion minutes of US streaming, landing second on Disney+'s annual chart. Off-camera, his public defense of co-star Moses Ingram against racist online abuse was sharper than most actors' PR teams would allow. He's kept working across formats (stage, streaming, prestige film) without consolidating into any single identity. Three decades in and he's still not easy to categorize.
Side Notes
His uncle Denis Lawson played Wedge Antilles in the original Star Wars trilogy, which makes McGregor's Obi-Wan casting feel like it runs in the family. Off-screen, his bigger identity might be the Long Way franchise: four motorcycle documentary series with Charley Boorman, starting in 2004. During the first journey, he and his then-wife adopted Jamyan, a girl they met at a Mongolian outreach center along the route. Not every actor's hobby ends in an adoption.