Ewan McGregor & Pedro Pascal Talk Storm Troopers, Baby Yoda, & Star Wars Secrets | Actors on Actors

are you doing a third season have you shot a third season or are you doing it now we haven't shot we haven't shot our third season so confidentially are you like no maybe i shouldn't oh no maybe so anyway let me tell you what's going on [Music] pedro it's a great pleasure to be speaking to you today it's an incredible pleasure to be speaking to you i just came directly from our set on the kenobi series and i'm working with so many of your crew from the mandalorian in fact deborah chow is directing um all of our series and i know she's directing a couple of episodes of your of the first season and uh it's just i don't know i'm having such an amazing time down there with that incredible technology and the volume and the not being in front of too much green screen and blue screen it's unbelievable isn't it it's spectacular you would think that you would have to um really invent all of it uh in your mind and more than any set i've ever been on it's it's there yeah meticulously created in the production design it's absolutely unbelievable yeah it's like being in an amusement park ride i haven't done loads of it in the first one i did the first three films in late 90s and into the 2000s by the time we did episode two and three we were literally 90 of the scenes were just on green sets with green floors green walls or blue set with blue sides and blue walls and we're doing stuff on there that you just that to the eye is like like you were transported and i i it's it's unbelievable to me to think that it'd be such a different experience but with the same character yeah that that you were doing before and then coming and doing it with all this new technology it reminds me of old hollywood it's like the beginning of hollywood i know we've it's almost like a fool you know when you you imagine hollywood when they had three-sided sets all in a row and a bunch of guys with their wind-up cameras and you would just go from one stage if you like to the other one background to the other well we're doing sort of the same thing except it's just the background changes instead of the stage yeah you know first of all you can invent stuff interiors or exteriors that don't exist in the real world and put us into that environment which is cool yeah and also you don't have to you know you don't have to fly ever i mean traveling has been great for the first 30 years of my career but now i just want to stay at home you know i just want to drive to work and drive home from work i want a proper job oh my god it's so immersive and um i don't know i i love that you're experiencing it i'm gonna jump out of star wars for just a second because i have to tell you in 96 i i did this summer trip i i lived in in spain and i remember when i finally came home my friends picked me up from the airport i flew back to new york and the first thing that they said to me was you have to see trainspotting literally the very very first thing and and that began my my absorption of your entire career so i know we jumped right into star wars but i've got to tell you what i you know you've got to understand at least a little bit what an honor it is to be speaking to you later oh well that's nice thank you very much that's very good 28 to 45 average household income 38 000 enjoys the finer things love's a night out but adores a night at home the fragrance to beat how will we do it no all right uh no to what the bottle okay sure we have lots of options hold on no okay no allison you didn't even look at that one no no no no no no no austin can i have a word no so did you know a lot about houston before taking the job is that is that why you did it how did that come about no i was between jobs or i didn't know what was next or something and i had like one of those afternoons where your agent my agent set up a few meetings that i very rarely go to the actual agency but i went there they put me in a room and i met like three directors one after the other who were all trying to raise funds for different projects and it was just an interesting afternoon but the first person through the door was dan minahan who directed the whole series of um houston and i and he started talking about the most famous person i'd never known first of all i just feel like i've been doing this long enough now and i've had enough experiences of doing this job where i'm not really being like i'm not growing with the director where it's just getting by doing the work and that's fine but i'm just sort of tired of that now and i only want to work with people where i'm going to be taken somewhere creatively or pooled or in one direction or another and so i'm always looking for those people and the second i started talking with dan i felt like he was somebody that would do that with me like i thought i'm going to get something out of this um relationship that i felt like i trusted him already so it sort of started with the relationship to the director and then the material and the subject matter came yeah i and i wasn't wrong you know my instincts about him were right like he led me but he also let me go and i don't know there was something beautiful about working with him there's something that i love so much about the show that that um the the kind of uh the way that it focuses on collaboration and almost like the the accident and the instinct that he has as an artist or the instinct that he has about people and other people's talent and vision and combines that with his own and how so many of these things that became i guess iconic in in the history of fashion and industry happened kind of by accident and and and was wondering how much you find that the i don't know like like you say the people that you work with started with like basically how you felt about yeah dan minhan and then from there came everything else and this performance well i was it was it was just like i was lucky that i had a long period with it before we got on set i it was a year or two because after meeting dan and and learning a bit about house and i then left that meeting and read as much about him as i could and realized i really wanted to play him and then then i became you know i became on as a as a producer and we started shopping it around um there was a different writer at that point char white was the writer at that point so me dan schar and christine vashon who i worked with on velvet gold mine years and years ago the four of us are pitching it around town and i've never really done i've done that for my motorbike trips but i've never done that for a for a piece of work like this and it's a tough i don't know if you've ever done that but it's a tough crowd that's such a no i haven't that's such a surprise to hear because the way that it the the the i guess the presumption that i made in watching it and enjoying it was that it was just like given to you like this like this gift of a role these rich sort of scripts and characters and and especially you know the central character house and that that it was just something that you couldn't say no to and now it makes it makes even more sense because of how well it works that that that it was sort of like you you were so much a part of piecing it all together well i was up our part of it and that we we went round and um we couldn't get anyone to pick it up but just nobody was interested it was i guess nobody gets killed in it there's no bloodshed there's no i don't know it was a story of uh there's so much blessing i know emotional bloodshed but it's the story of a man's life and i i don't know that people sometimes don't anyway they clearly didn't nobody picked it up and it was only christine version months later after the phone went very quiet and i just assumed it had gone i thought oh well we we gave it a go and nobody's picked it up and and nobody phones you saying in my experience saying it's dead it's not happening it just goes very quiet and then and then she met ryan murphy and she was asking what he was doing and she mentioned the houston project and he said well we've got to do it i mean we've just got to do it so i think he then went to netflix where he has his deal and he just said i'm doing halston and that's i don't think he really asked them but just told them you know well i guess that that's part of my presumption is that it may have been like you know ryan murphy knowing exactly what he wanted and you know getting the director and i'm doing it with you in yeah and i don't know it's just exciting for me to hear that it it it doesn't necessarily work out the way that you would expect as an actor it was just so cool to you know be able to relate to it on so many levels and um just in in the kind of um i guess within the subject of creating something and all of the corruption that comes with success and the inevitable demons that you kind of like going to battle with there's one word you don't use halston except to drop snarky little hints that holston perfume was all your idea but she never i have never in my life never said that where's the thank you elsa i got you that job at tiffany's i'm just waiting for a thank you no you don't get to make this about you you're creative because i pay you if you're an artist it's on my dime and i want a little acknowledgement in print thank you very much i like very much the discussion of of the creative being and the financial side of things and how they come together and it's so it's so similar in our business in our work than in uh halston's i think he was dealing with people he trusted and money people and there was the constant battle against his creative perfectionism and then these people just saying we want more we want more do this line of luggage do those shoes do these carpets do these airline seats like he designed everything and anything and nobody had done that yet he was the first he was the first person to do that but in a way it sort of overwhelmed him because he was so passionate about it that he wouldn't allow someone else to design a piece of anything with his name on it he had to do it you know a buttonhole or a collar or whatever it be he had to make the decisions you know he couldn't stand for someone else to do that and then the end he just couldn't i think probably couldn't keep up did you have a lot of opportunity to study him sort of physically and because you you're doing this incredible voice that that i'm assuming um is inspired by by by the real person there's lots of great footage of him i mean he he was sort of by the end he liked to capture everything he was he he was sort of live streaming his life towards the end before there was instagram you know he had a he had a camera crew in his work room in olympic tower all the time he loved to be on display i think so there's a lot of footage of him and the voice is sort of i worked with liz hammelstein who's a great dialect coach um i've always worked with her on american accents and so we just wanted to try and make it grow so that it gets because it did and his life gets sort of grander and grander you know so by the end an episode five is more grand than it is in episode one you know but there's lots of him to watch that's the nice thing about it is i was able to to watch him and totally fall for him you know i really i was always looking for pieces because there's lots of interviews with him but he's always on you know there's a very presented ma you know presented sort of um on houston and i i found some great footage of him backstage at fashion shows where you see we see him in in his in his world you know backstage and just doing little alterations on the girls before they go out and he's sort of naughty and there's a great one he's in detroit and and there was a fashion museum opened in detroit and he presented some of his dresses to this new museum so he's backstage he's got a drink in his hand a cigarette but he's really having a good time and the guy there's obviously some cute guy filming him because he's so flirty with the guy behind the camera and uh i love seeing that and i love seeing with his girls he was just so fun you know he really enjoyed their company like he liked doing what he was doing and and so there was a very serious side to him in front of the camera but i was always trying to find that backstage naughty version of him you know it's it it's a it's a it's a total home run oh great and and and it it humanizes him so much in in in so many different ways in the way that you play it even in in in just kind of like i don't know a physical sort of effortless and effortlessness you know i'm flattered and it's it's great i i it was a it was amazing actors to work with good writing a great director amazing sets and costumes like to recreate that time in new york and that time in america to span those 20 years you know the height of studio 54 and to tell that story and then the tragedy of the aids coming in and everyone losing their loved ones in that time i don't know i i i think it's it's it was a beautiful opportunity to tell that story too you know you've got drug addiction you've got fashion you've got past trauma you've got yeah yeah pretty delicious there's a lot going on there is a lot going on false alarm [Music] [Music] are you doing a third season have you shot a third season or are you doing it now we haven't shot we haven't shot a third season so confidentially are you so anyway let me tell you what's going on [Laughter] no i know better than when i say it for years i've had to not tell people about star wars was so secretive so they are um yeah we're gonna be doing a season three that's great it's so loved i tell you what it's done is it's it's sort of for me because i'm about to start i'm started doing this kenobi series and it's similar in the technology what have you but it pulled me back into the star wars world the mandalorian series in a way i didn't expect i i had my experience doing it in the 90s and it sort of blew me away how much i loved it it was sort of the first thing that i noticed when i started meeting with with john favreau and dave filoni was that they were finding a way to totally realize their love of of star wars all of our yeah love for for for star wars for you know all of them all of the movies we had seen up to up to that point and so uh creatively to um to just to to step into something it felt i don't know i just felt so so safe it was so clear to me that they knew what they were doing yeah starting with their heart being so in the right place and um and and and doing it yeah with a lot of love yeah and then and then of course like these technical achievements with all the most talented people all the best like design teams that that you can possibly imagine like pre and post and and everything but starting from like you know the kernel of of love of star wars how how what was your relationship with star wars when you before well i was born i was born in 75 and and um my parents uh immigrated to uh the us from chile when i was a baby and so we were you know by the time star wars came out it was uh we were absorbing a lot of uh a cinema my father who's a doctor but loves you know going to the movies um he would be taking us all the time i don't know kind of like dominated my my childhood experience you know the star wars and the indiana jones and e.t yeah you know all that spielberg george lucas stuff you know when i met with them and and stepped into like a writer's room that was um wall to wall story illustrations of of of the first season it was really surreal to see such sort of like familiar imagery kind of realize that they're sort of pulled right out of your imagination it's kind of the thing that they're doing is they sort of know the impact that it had on all of us and they're finding a way to um or new ways to kind of um really speak to that and and and and visually you know create the things that we sort of see when we close our eyes and think about it which is kind of 10 amazing to system shutdown 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 facial scan complete [Music] it's a galaxy far far away it's a universe of possibility really we've got this they've got the original movies the sort of linear nature of those but also i just love that day and you took it into this different direction just slightly different tone but in the same world you know it's like all the all the all the old and all the new yeah some old friends and some new friends and and of course how did you keep the baby yodas um it's not called baby or the grogu how did you keep it how did you like kept secrets very good thank you how was it kept secret because nobody that didn't get released that's the first secret that i that's it may literally be the very first secret that i've ever kept yeah yeah that was a big one don't share anything personal with me no no you can always stress it but um you know i i guess i there's so much seriousness around um you know leaked information and i find it all just a bit you know too much and and so i tell my family everything you know and um and i didn't with grogu um i didn't even know what his name was gonna be until the second season but i i i could i could just tell you know that it was gonna have such an impact and i think that sincerely the idea that it could work as well as they hoped it would and that i imagined it could when i when i saw the image of this thing sort of reading the scripts and everything i i think i didn't i didn't want that to um i didn't want to compromise that yeah anyway yeah yeah you know what i mean so it was easy to not talk about it because it was like nah you know i find an intimate i want this to work to what to to save it i find in interviews how devious people are about trying to drag things out of you you know it's incredible like how clever people are you suddenly find yourself going down an alley like oh wait a minute was he broke on set were you was it a a puppet was it like a yeah there's this incredible puppet with like you know fuzzy hair on on the ears and with yeah there are these you know there are these incredible puppets and one can be done remotely um that is like more conducive to wider shots and then there's one that's very very plugged in and you know its eyeballs are moving around its eyebrows and it's you know it all of the sort of like muscular details of its face and ears and everything and these guys are so talented and and that that they get it to they get the the puppet to sort of act with you yeah i remember doing this one moment and they they didn't they didn't keep it but um the puppet was warming itself near the fire or curious about some kind of fire you know coming out of a jet and um and i said don't get too close and then you know and and and whoever's doing the remote literally had you know the puppet like look at me and back up and like be like oh okay you know and it's like kind of unbelievable he's a really good scene partner [Music] [Music] all right pal it's time to go i was lucky to do my scenes with yoda with the pup with the yoda puppet and um it was extraordinary to because i acted with him you know like you said you were acting with your i couldn't believe i was acting with the order and then at the end of every because there's so many people operating him but and the stage is lifted up i guess so they're underneath the floor we're like like literally walking next to each other and i don't know he's like alive and then every time they called george cole cut he would die yoda because everyone just stops operating like that and it was sort of disturbing every time that the the end of the scene would come along and then they replaced him with um for our second film and our third film with the digital version of him and it never felt like it was this it's not as indeed it's not nearly as and and also we know yoda as a puppet you know we know him from the original three movies as a puppet so so when it was suddenly computer generated it didn't feel like yoda to me anymore you know it's interesting that they went back to using an actual puppet with your with your series because because they yeah it's it's it's interesting and there's something that's so kind of like the way that it worked on so many levels in in the way that we had to end this uh the second season um with this you know this sort of tearful goodbye yeah and and and to not have had uh the the the puppet for that and also the knowledge of its reception yeah by the you know from the world and how everyone felt about you know um um this it's it's it's cr it's creation it's it's relationship to the history of star wars and um and and whatever it does like provoking in everybody it was it was it was one of those more strange kind of acting experiences that i've ever had in a way if that makes any sense it does totally make sense i i don't i don't think i'd be giving away a secret maybe i did two i've done be careful and i'll be so careful well it's all right there's no secret to when my this series is being set but i i had to walk past two stormtroopers i realized i never i've never acted with a stormtrooper because i did all the mine were clones you know there's the clone arm yeah so i'd never seen a stormtrooper so and i was walking past this scene i turned around and i was like six years old again like doesn't it do something like something isn't it completely insane like i was like feeling like i was sex again or something because i'm so close to when i got a fright you know so crazy and then i went decided to ask someone were there stormtroopers in my films because i don't think i've seen a stormtrooper for real before and they were like no no they weren't stone troopers they were clones and jawas i had another scene a little jawa i'm gonna full i'm gonna i'm gonna force you back into halston real quick because i think that there's an interesting relationship from one of the very very first times i ever saw you which was in trainspotting which was like this really sort of brutal depiction of addiction and then literally finishing the the the fourth episode because he starts in the first episode with joel schumacher and kind of calling out how dangerous and or how intolerant he would be uh to work with somebody who was falling into you know dangerous drug use and then he succumbs to it is it exhausting to to sort of um research addiction or or or to to embody it how different did it feel then versus uh now no i'm sort of interested in it in a way that and when i was doing train spotting i worked with some really extraordinary guys who i don't know why they're all it was maybe just a guy's club but there's a club in glasgow called the colton athletic club and they're uh it's a recovery group and they're i suppose it's like n a or a or something but they have meetings they help each other with support and they play foot they play soccer they love soccer teams you know yeah we worked with those guys and we had like a drug amen was his name he was our drug advisor so during the rehearsal period he he lined us all up at this table and we were all given all the things we would need to cook up a shot of heroin like a little cigarette lighter and a spoon and some matches and bicarbonate soda and some pretend heroin and he did like he demonstrated how he would do it and then he would walk up and down the line as we were all trying to do it he'd like no no more bicarb and that's not enough heroin and you'd soak it through you know he was giving us like a it was so funny a tutorial and i'd shoot i've looked back on it you know like this guy was in recovery you know how how did that feel to him you know to be doing that but but there was a great humor about it all i suppose and um i i didn't realize i would end up you know with addiction problems myself then and and you know became sober in 2000 and so now when i'm looking at characters who are who are addicts i look at it through a different lens you know of like understanding it more and i am fascinated by because it's a it's an everyday part in my life is being sober but at the same time it's it's quite an important part because it's given me such joy and happiness and peace uh in a way that i didn't have before i was sober so um i like to look at it's interesting to go back you know it's interesting to do all those lines of coke and all those cigarettes and shots and that halston was doing um just being glad that they weren't real you know just being happy about that but but understanding it but it gives you an understanding of course i understand about addiction and i i can i could imagine halston i i don't know i'm going to be honest i don't think i don't know how honest the portrayal of his relationship with schumacher is in that i don't think that he was you don't think that he was ever kind of like no no naughty naughty no i'm not going to put up with this kind of behavior and then somehow i don't think so i think they have a beautiful relationship it's a little petulant the relationship in our series i think they had a really beautiful relationship and joel schumacher passed away during the lockdown um but while we were in the middle of shooting the series and i was so sad because i know i knew joel uh in the back in the day i auditioned for him a couple of times and i uh he was i visited his set when he was doing batman here once i don't know i was on set doing er and he was there and we he showed me around he was so lovely and um i i worried that that we weren't sort of servicing their relationship because i think because in the documentary of halston joel schumacher's speaks so beautifully about halston that i can't really believe i think halston would have been tough on him if he wasn't being creative enough if he wasn't doing the work but uh but i you know well there's love in the i mean it it's it's it's minimal but there's love in the relationship that's totally clear i don't mean to say that he's intolerant of like his behavior by now i think he's more sort of like instantly paternal towards character and that might have been the case i don't know i don't know he just seemed so from what i can see he just seemed so inclusive of everybody halston yeah sexuality race he was just so open to everybody all the time i i think that was one of the beautiful things about him you know austin i'm getting married to whom to jack who do you think oh of course sweetheart that's wonderful yeah so you're not moving in honey what is wrong oh i just got scared you're gonna get married and i'm never gonna see you again it's just like he didn't have any boundaries or something i think he just loved loved people beauty and and and in whatever shape or form that took you know it was so cool to start nice to talk to you maybe i'll see you down the road maybe yeah i hope so um and uh and and yeah have a blast on that set man i will maybe we will uh bump into each other come visit or [Music] something you

Channel: Variety

Views: 596,301

Rating: 4.9812145 out of 5

Keywords: Variety, Variety Studio

Id: hsxQXs9bjbo

Length: 31min 39sec (1899 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 09 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/mybeachlife]

Oh yes. This interview is my jam.

[u/hotcolddog]

Oh hell yes, inject this into my veins.