Ewan Gordon McGregor is a Scottish actor and first-time film director who has an estimated net worth of $50 million. He became famous after playing the leading role in the movie Trainspotting (1996). McGregor is also well known for his performances in the films Moulin Rouge! (Baz Luhrman, 2001) and Big Fish (2003), as well as in George Lucas’ Star Wars prequel trilogy: "Episode I – The Phantom Menace" (2001), "Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002)", and "Episode III – Revenge of the Sith" (2005), and in the third season of the TV series Fargo (2017), for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in the Miniseries or Television Film category. McGregor worked in 60 films, totaling more than $8 billion in the worldwide box office. He earned approximately $3.3 million for each one of his three last main roles in Zoe (2018), Christopher Robin (2018), and Doctor Sleep (2019). Outside film and television, McGregor additionally performed in theater plays such as William Shakespeare's Othello. Besides that, he has been an ambassador for Unicef since 2004. After a poll made for the BBC that year, McGregor was named the fourth most influential person in British culture. In 2013, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to drama and charity. Three years later, McGregor debuted as a director with "American Pastoral", in which he also starred.

McGregor was born on March 31, 1971, in Perth, Scotland, and brought up in nearby Crieff. His mother, Carol Lawson, was a teacher at Crieff High School and later deputy headteacher at Kingspark School in Dundee. His father, James Charles Stewart McGregor, was a physical education teacher at Morrison's Academy in Crieff, where McGregor attended. He has an older brother, Colin, who is a former pilot in the Royal Air Force. After leaving school at 16 years old, McGregor came back to Perth to work as a collaborator in stage designing at Perth Repertory Theatre and studied an introductory course in drama at Kirkcaldy College of Technology. At the age of 18, he moved to London to study drama at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

In 1993, McGregor played in the TV series Lipstick on Your Collar and Scarlet and Black, and he made his film debut in Being Human. The next year, he performed in the tragicomedy movie Shallow Grave, which was his first collaboration with director Danny Boyle. His international breakthrough occurred in 1996 when he starred a heroin addict in Trainspotting, an adaptation of Irvine Welsh's namesake novel that grossed $72 million on a budget of less than $2 million. In 1998, McGregor played the main character as a rocker and drug abuser in the glam-rock-life Velvet Goldmine. The film stands out for the interaction between the musicians David Bowie and Iggy Pop and was presented in seven festivals. McGregor performed in the blockbuster Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace as the young Obi-Wan Kenobi in 1999. It had revenue of more than $1 billion and McGregor earned $13 million for his work.

In 2000, McGregor played James Joyce in Nora, a biographical drama about the English writer. In 2001, he portrayed the poet Christian, who falls in love with the terminally-ill courtesan Satine, performed by Nicole Kidman in the musical Moulin Rouge! The film was nominated for seven Oscars and the world box office sales totaled almost $180 million. The following year, McGregor reprised his role of Obi-Wan Kenobi for the next prequel Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones. In 2003, he played the main character when youth in the critically praised Big Fish. McGregor appeared in the last prequel Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith in 2005, from which he earned $7 million. In total, the prequel trilogy earned over $2.5 billion at the box office. The same year, McGregor voiced two animated films: Robots, which also has the voices of Halle Berry and Robin Williams, and Valiant, where he played the lead role. Besides, he headlined the science fiction film The Island along with Scarlett Johansson. Also in 2005, McGregor featured in Stay, a psychological thriller co-starring Naomi Watts and Ryan Gosling. In 2007, he performed with Colin Farrell in Woody Allen's film Cassandra's Dream, co-starring with Jim Carrey in I Love You Phillip Morris, and with Tom Hanks in Angels & Demons, an adaptation of Dan Brown's novel.

In 2010, McGregor starred in Roman Polanski’s political thriller The Ghost Writer. The next year, he received a Golden Globe nomination for his performance in Salmon Fishing in Yemen. In 2012, McGregor featured in Steven Soderbergh’s action movie Haywire along with Antonio Banderas and Michael Douglas, and he played in the thriller The Impossible with Naomi Watts. Also in 2012, McGregor was part of the Jury for the Main Competition at the Cannes Film Festival, and he was awarded the Donostia Lifetime Achievement Award at the San Sebastián International Film Festival, becoming the youngest person to receive the award. In 2015, McGregor performed in the J.J. Abrams' Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens. The film had worldwide revenue of more than $2 billion and became the fourth highest-grossing work in cinematography behind Titanic ($2.2 billion), Avengers: Endgame ($2.7 billion), and Avatar ($2.8 billion). In 2017, he starred in the live-action version of Disney's Beauty and the Beast and in the sequel T2 Trainspotting.

McGregor married production designer Eve Mavrakis in 1995 and they have four daughters: Clara Mathilde, Esther Rose, Jamyan, and Annouk. The couple bought a house in Los Angeles for about $1.9 million in 2002, but this became an issue when McGregor filed for divorce in 2018. The catalyst for McGregor's divorce was a secret romance with Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who also played in Fargo. The new couple purchased a property in Topanga Canyon, located in western Los Angeles County, in 2019. McGregor and Mavrakis reached a settlement to conclude their marriage in 2020. It gave her the house in Los Angeles, valued at $6.62 million, her jewelry, $501,704 in cash, and five cars. She will also receive a portion of McGregor's ongoing royalties from movies he acted in during the marriage. In addition, he has to deliver $14,934 per month in child support and $35,868 per month in spousal support.

Sources: People Pill, The Famous People, The Numbers, The Numbers (2), IMDB, Celebrity Net Worth, 24smi.org, Wealthy Genius, The Numbers (3), Movie Web, BBC.

This article was updated by Andrés Taurian on April 5, 2021

Some of the earnings listed below are based on estimates of how much he was paid in previous movies or roles

Earnings & Financial Data