Ewan McGregor To Receive Honorary Dragon Award At Göteborg Film Festival

Sweden’s Göteborg Film Festival has tapped actor Ewan McGregor to receive its honorary dragon award for career achievement during its 47th edition, running from January 26 to February 4. 

McGregor will attend Göteborg to receive the award, participate in an ‘actors talk’ Q&A session, and present the Nordic premiere of Niclas Larsson’s Mother, Couch, in which he plays the leading role alongside Taylor Russell. The festival will also host a retrospective of McGregor’s films.

Some of McGregor’s most notable credits include Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting, Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge!, and the Star Wars trilogy. The Scottish actor is next set to exec produce and star in Paramount+ & Showtime’s A Gentleman in Moscow.

“Ewan McGregor is an androgynous symbol of the Cool Britannia era, a romantic icon for the millennial generation, and a saber-swinging franchise holder in the pop-cultural center of the galaxy,” said Jonas Holmberg, artistic director of the Göteborg Film Festival.

“But above all, he is an incredibly skilled artist. By mastering stylized extravagance, literary precision, and nuanced realism with the same relaxed self-evidence, Ewan McGregor has shown that he is one of the truly great actors of our time.”

McGregor’s award presentation will take place in conjunction with a screening of Trainspotting at the festival’s Stora Teatern. An on-stage conversation with McGregor will follow the screening. 

Mother, Couch debuted at last year’s Toronto Film Festival. The pic will compete in Göteborg’s Nordic Competition. The pic is Larsson’s debut feature and is based on Swedish author Jerker Virdborg’s novel Mamma i soffa. The surreal pic tells the story of three children who are brought together when their mother refuses to move from a couch in a furniture store. The cast also features Ellen Burstyn, Rhys Ifans, Lara Flynn Boyle, and F. Murray Abraham. The film is produced by Sara Murphy (Licorice Pizza, If Beale Street Could Talk).