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Sat 28 June 2025 22:30, UK
Ewan McGregor has been in some banging films. As Mark ‘Rent Boy’ Renton in Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting, he became one of the flag bearers for a grotty, deliberately unappealing style of filmmaking that came to define British cinema in the 1990s. Since then, he’s impressed in the likes of Black Hawk Down, Doctor Sleep, and even a Trainspotting sequel. All of this goes without mentioning his work on the small screen, which includes an Emmy-nominated turn in Fargo.
It hasn’t always been smooth sailing for the handsome Scot, however. While his portrayal of Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequels is often looked back on fondly, the series as a whole still has a nasty funk hanging over it. Mortdecai, a 2015 Johnny Depp vehicle in which McGregor plays a police officer, was a failure both critically and commercially and, while another of his films was a hit, the actor has publicly knocked his own performance as Frank Churchill in the 1996 adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma.
At least McGregor made it clear that he was the problem with Emma, not the film itself. Another of his movies didn’t get the same treatment during an episode of the Dish podcast. During a fairly innocuous discussion about his love for bagpipes, the Moulin Rouge! star revealed that one project in 2012 still makes his skin crawl.
“I was now making another film in London, which I won’t name ’cause I hated it,” he said, slyly. “I never, never even watched it, it’s a rubbish film”. He never did reveal what the movie was, but he did reveal that eagle-eyed fans could probably “figure it out” from a look at his filmography. “It wasn’t Salmon Fishing [in the Yemen],” he quickly reassured, “I loved Salmon Fishing. That was a lovely film”.
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, a comedy drama in which McGregor plays an expert on fish, technically had its premiere in 2011, but was made widely available in 2012. Not only did its star seemingly enjoy making it, but it made a decent splash (pardon the pun) at the box office, too. McGregor even picked up a Golden Globe nomination for his efforts. So, if it’s not Salmon Fishing, then what is this movie that McGregor hates so much, he dare not speak its name?
Analysing his output from around this time, there is one movie that sticks out like a sore thumb. In early 2013, McGregor starred in the god-awful fantasy adventure flick Jack the Giant Slayer, a reworking of the classic Jack and the Beanstalk fairytale with Nicholas Hoult in the title role. Filming for this cheap piece of CGI-heavy nonsense took place in the UK, which matches up with what McGregor was saying. It’s complete rubbish, following a similar path to other ‘kids stories for grown-ups’ fodder as Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. There’s a good reason why its star has never seen it. You should also avoid it, if at all possible.
While we’ll probably never know for sure, all signs point to Jack and the Giant Slayer being the culprit. There’s every chance he really hates The Impossible, which was released a few months earlier, but realistically, we all know what he was really on about.
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