Ewan McGregor on His Honorary Award, Sweden, and Acting

After receiving this year’s Honorary Dragon Award, Ewan McGregor stayed on at the theater to relive, for the first time in years, the film that propelled him to stardom: Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting. He then participated in an Actors Talk, moderated by Jonas Holmberg.

Before the Trainspotting screening at Stora Teatern on Wednesday, McGregor accepted his Honorary Dragon Award to resounding applause. Following the film, he joined an Actors Talk where he discussed his acting career, a possible Swedish heritage, and the chances of a Trainspotting 3.

“It’s not often you get the chance to revisit something you did so long ago, in an environment like this, with people like you. It was a wonderful opportunity, and I was deeply moved,” McGregor told the audience during the post-film discussion, moderated by Jonas Holmberg, the festival’s Artistic Director.

This visit to Göteborg Film Festival marks McGregor’s first trip to Sweden. The actor shared that, before leaving Scotland, his mother urged him to reflect on whether Sweden feels like home. She is convinced their family has Swedish roots and believes their surname Lawson originates from Larsson.

Coincidentally, Larsson is also the surname of one of the directors whose films McGregor is presenting at the festival. Gothenburg native Niclas Larsson is making his feature debut with Mother, Couch—a psychological drama where three siblings reunite in a furniture store after their mother barricades herself on one of its sofas. Based on Jerker Virdborg’s novel Mamma i soffa, the film had its Nordic premiere on Wednesday night.

The second McGregor film in this year’s festival program is Bleeding Love, in which McGregor stars alongside his daughter Clara, who also wrote the screenplay.

During the Actors Talk, McGregor also reflected on how he discovered acting through his uncle Denis Lawson, who appeared in the original Star Wars trilogy, and shared anecdotes about being mistakenly painted as a political rival to Sean Connery after a night out in Cannes. He also reminisced about his experiences working on films like Moulin Rouge!, Trainspotting, and his directorial debut American Pastoral.

But what about Trainspotting 3?

“Maybe when we’re all 70,” McGregor joked.