WOS Photos: McGregor Awarded for Musical Debut

Ewan McGregor (pictured) made his stage musical debut last year in Guys and Dolls and last week won our Whatsonstage.com Theatregoers’ Choice Best Actor in a Musical Award for his role as gambling man Sky Masterson – gathering nearly 40% of the vote in a category that included his co-star Douglas Hodge (See News, 31 Jan 2006). Today, Whatsonstage.com met up with the star at the Union Club in Soho to present him with his trophy.

“It’s lovely to win this,” McGregor told Whatsonstage.com. “The best awards are always the ones voted for by real people, in this case theatregoers. It’s really special to get an award voted for by them.” He agreed that the honour took on extra significance, given that it was his stage musical debut. Performing in a musical is, he admitted, “very difficult, it’s harder than I imagined it would be, the singing every night – trying to sing the songs well but also trying to make sense of them. My hat comes off now to people who are in musicals. It’s not as easy as it looks.”

Despite the physical demands of the job, McGregor recalls his time on Guys and Dolls, which he finished in December, with affection. “I loved it,” he enthused. “I needed the change of pace, I needed to be on stage again in front of an audience because you learn so much more about being an actor there than you do on a film set. I had a great time – and there was an incredible company of dancers and actors round about us. I had a really really fantastic experience doing the show right to the end – six months in, I was still learning about certain moments and making bits work that maybe hadn’t worked before. It was great.”

And good news for theatregoers – McGregor plans to be back on stage soon. “There are no firm plans at the moment, but I’m not going to leave it too long,” he said today. “When I did Little Malcolm (which transferred from Hampstead Theatre to the West End in 1999), it had been seven years since I’d been on stage, and then it was five years before I did Guys and Dolls. I’m not going to leave it that long again.”

McGregor’s Theatregoers’ Choice Award was one of four overall for Michael Grandage’s production of Frank Loesser’s Broadway classic. It also scooped Best Actress in a Musical (Jane Krakowski), Best Supporting Actor in a Musical (Martyn Ellis) and Best Musical Revival Nicely Nicely Johnson. McGregor and Krakowski have also been nominated in this year’s Laurence Olivier Awards, announced on 26 February (See News, 18 Jan 2006).

Guys and Dolls is currently booking until 2 September 2006 at the Piccadilly Theatre where a new cast – led by Adam Cooper and Sally Ann Triplett as Sky Masterson and Miss Adelaide – take over from 6 March (See Today’s Other News).

McGregor displays his Best Actor trophy as well as Best Musical Revival for Guys & Dolls

McGregor inspects his award

To view the full list of winners & nominees as well as further
acceptance remarks & voting percentages, click here. And look out for more
awards presentations over the coming days.

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