Scottish actor Ewan McGregor was skiing in Utah in the US last year when he happened to share a ski lift with one of the producers of cult US TV series Fargo.
“He asked if I’d seen it and said they were looking for someone to play two brothers in the third season,” the 46-year-old recalls.
“I hadn’t, so I got home and started watching season one. I ended up bingeing on two seasons in a week and became obsessed with it.”
That’s how Ewan, best known for his roles in Trainspotting, Moulin Rouge! and Star Wars, ended up starring in his first TV series.
The third season of the crime-drama series picks up in 2010, when we meet two Minnesotan brothers, Emmit and Ray Stussy (both played by Ewan).
Emmit is a wealthy local real estate mogul, while younger brother Ray is a down-on-his-luck parole officer. Ray has a chip on his shoulder and blames Emmit for all his hardships. He plans a petty theft to set things right, but being Fargo, things go very wrong.
Taking on the accent
Ewan suspects his Scottish accent made it tough to nail the quirky accent made famous in the 1996 Coen brothers’ film that inspired the series.
“I’m doing the Fargo-ese accent, but I also had to find slightly different accents for each character, because the brothers’ life paths have been very different,” he adds.
“It was definitely the hardest accent I’ve ever had to master − and I did something in Dutch once!”
Sibling rivalry
The actor shaved his head before filming started, so to play Emmit he had dark curly hair, wore brown contact lenses and had a healthy glow. Ray, meanwhile, was balding, pasty and heavier, with stringy hair and Ewan’s blue eyes.
“They were both great characters to bring to life,” the star says. “To play and explore a character for more than 10 hours as opposed to a two-hour movie is very satisfying.”
Ewan McGregor as younger brother Ray.
Me, myself and I
Ewan says this is the third time he’s played more than one character.
“I did it in a movie called The Island, where I played a clone and was in some scenes where the clone met the guy he was cloned from,” he explains.
“I’m definitely the guy you think of for a job like this, as I’m very experienced at playing with myself!”
Mary Elizabeth Winstead stars as Nikki Swango in the third season of Fargo.
Surviving winter
Though Fargo was shot in the Canadian city of Calgary rather than Minnesota in the United States, the stand-in location was just as bitterly cold.
“It was extraordinarily freezing weather, and the crew were so tough,” Ewan says. “They were outside all day and didn’t get to step inside trailers to get warm between takes like actors do.
“In one scene we shot, Mary [Elizabeth Winstead] was in a skirt and had bare legs. It was minus 29 degrees [Celsius], so they were really careful to make sure neither of us died of exposure!”
