His career progressed with starring roles in the musical Moulin Rouge! He gained praise for his performances in the thriller The Ghost Writer and romantic comedy Salmon Fishing in the Yemen McGregor made his directorial debut with the crime film American Pastoral , in which he also starred. McGregor has also starred in theatre productions of Guys and Dolls β and Othello β For his education McGregor attended Morrison's Academy.
After leaving school at the age of 16, he worked as a stagehand at Perth Theatre and studied a foundation course in drama at Kirkcaldy College of Technology, [ 17 ] [ 18 ] before moving to London to study drama at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama when he was 18 years old. His international breakthrough followed with the role of heroin addict Mark Renton in Boyle's Trainspotting , an adaptation of Irvine Welsh 's novel of the same name.
McGregor played the male romantic lead role in the British film Little Voice He was cast as the young Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy , released between and He also stated that the negative reaction to the films had been difficult. McGregor starred in Moulin Rouge! In the same period, he also received critical acclaim for his portrayal of an amoral drifter mixed up with murder in the drama Young Adam also , which co-starred Tilda Swinton.
McGregor voiced two successful animated features; he played the robot Rodney Copperbottom in Robots , which also featured the voices of Halle Berry and Robin Williams , [ 27 ] and he voiced the lead character in Gary Chapman 's Valiant both , alongside Jim Broadbent , John Cleese and Ricky Gervais.
He played "the ghost" β the unnamed main character β in Roman Polanski 's political thriller The Ghost Writer Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph felt the film was "psychotically unfunny". In , he reprised his role as Mark Renton in T2 Trainspotting. Filming began in May at Shepperton Studios in London , and the movie was released in March In , McGregor played the American fashion designer Halston in the eponymously titled miniseries for Netflix, based on the candid biography Simply Halston by journalist Steven Gaines.
