Just weeks ago, people were side-eyeing the hell out of the very idea of casting Joaquin Phoenix as Jesus Christ in the Rooney-Mara-starring Mary Magdalene bio-pic. The idea of a white, fair-skinned American playing Jesus is still difficult for people to process. But what about a white, fair-skinned Scotsman playing Jesus? Because that’s already happened. Ewan McGregor did a film called Last Days in the Desert, where he plays Jesus during the tailend of his “wandering the desert” phase. It sounds like a weird little art film, honestly, and I doubt many theaters will play it here in America. But Ewan is still going to promote it. He sat down with the Daily Beast to talk about Jesus, religion, Star Wars and more. You can read the full piece here. Some highlights:
Ewan is not particularly religious in real life: “I’m not a religious person. I’m married to a Jewish woman, so my children are Jewish and my involvement in religion has more to do with the Jewish faith now and not the Christian faith, which I was very vaguely brought up in. My parents were not religious, but my school had prayers at morning assembly. So my early understanding of religion was the Protestant faith in Scotland. But my experience is no longer that.”
Playing Jesus’s frustration: “When I started thinking about it in those terms, as a man who is frustrated he can’t communicate with his father—well, there’s not a guy in the world who hasn’t had a moment like that with his own dad, so I understood that. I’m very friendly with my dad by the way, and we have a very loving relationship. But of course when you grow up, you have moments like that. ‘My dad doesn’t understand me!’”
He didn’t make this film for the Evangelicals: “We didn’t set out to make a film for those people. I think even those people might question or find offensive a film that is absolutely based on the Gospel. But we didn’t make a movie that’s offensive to people of faith. I think that is the truth. We didn’t set out to offend them, or not offend them. We made a film about the relationships between fathers and sons, and the lead character is Jesus.”
He recently directed & starred in an adaptation of Philip Roth’s American Pastoral: “I was attached to it forever, and directors kept coming and going like the drummer in Spinal Tap. I wanted to direct for 15, 20 years but found only two stories in all that time that I really wanted to tell. One, I got the fear and just bottled it and didn’t see it through. The next one I discovered that somebody else was already making that story. And this was the third time lucky and I went, Maybe I can do it…It focuses very much on postwar Americanism, postwar American hope and aspirations being decimated by the ‘60s and the Vietnam War, and that generation of young people who fought against it and destroyed it. I just realized I answered a question wrong the other day. American Pastoral is about a Jewish man called Swede Levov, and somebody asked me, ‘Is that the first Jewish character you’ve ever played?’ I said, ‘I think it is!’ But I just realized: I played Jesus.”
I had no idea that Ewan McGregor’s wife Eve is Jewish and that his kids were being brought up in the Jewish faith. That’s really interesting! And I guess I’m sort of giving Ewan a pass on the blue-eyed Jesus thing, mostly because the film seems like such a strange little art project rather than “typical Hollywood whitewashing.” Last Days in the Desert premiered at Sundance last year and it’s just getting a limited American release as of May 13th. No one will see it. If whitewashing happens and no one sees it, does it count?
Photos courtesy of WENN.
Sigh. Like a fine (and I mean FINE) wine.
I have nothing to add to this eloquent description of Ewan.
eh sigh.
I think Ewan just goes along with whatever mama/wife Eve does, and I’m not talking about religion. I think he’s beautiful to look at but not a lot of depth there. He was young when they met almost like he went from mother to marriage/wife.
I have a bit of gossip about him and Eve but it’s second hand, sort of (she didn’t witness it, heard it from a direct source) so not sure if I should write it. Lets just say if true, the guy and his wife are more screwed up than has already been reported.
I’ve been a fan of Ewans for twenty years, and you could not be more wrong. He’s not dim in any way. Try reading literally any one of his interviews.
And yes, he and Eve have always been rumored to have an open relationship. *shrug* It appears to be working for them as they’re still together after almost twenty years so I wouldn’t be so quick to judge…
It isn’t an open marriage as you may think of. It’s much more bizarre. And yeah I can judge a man on his behavior, it tells me a lot about his core character.
As far an his intelligence goes, the guy didn’t even know he did a rape scene in one of his own movies. Seriously!
He’s charming and witty but emotional intelligence just isn’t there.
“It isn’t an open marriage as you may think of. It’s much more bizarre”
sounds like a reference to polyamory which is even more complicated than an open relationship so I guess more bizarre to those of us who are monogamists?
Well now Calico Cat I really want to know!!!!!!
Ahhhh Calico Cat spill the beans….!!
Meow meow please tell!
on another thread someone said ewan was needy. he needs more people than his wife. maybe she needs more people,lovers too. sounds like two troubled needy minds found each other. wonder if it affects the kids.
I believe all of their children are over 18. That still does not read right. He and Eve, hubba hubba.
Only one of their kids is over 18. I think two are 14ish, one is about 5.
Whitewashing of what? Have you ever seen Jews?
So I’m a blue eyed fair hair Jew living in Israel, and let me tell you that there are different types of appearance within Jewish community. Including plenty of red headed and blonds with blue eyes.
Kaiser was writing about what the appearance of a Jewish man living around the turn of the previous millennium was likely to be (2000 years ago), per the work of anthropologists and the like. He was more likely to be shorter than modern men, and have dark eyes, skin and hair and overall what would be thought of as a more “Semitic” appearance.
Modern-day Jews reflect the entire range of human appearance due to the Diaspora, and modern Israelis reflect how many Jews lived for centuries in northern Europe and then migrated(back) to latter-day Palestine/modern Israel in the 20th Century.
@Talia: Agree with you! The Bible’s description of Kind David (distant relative of Jesus) is that he’s a redhead.
I too give him a pass. I did laugh about his comments about his children and wife. It’s like he’s saying it is ok because my wife is Jewish. But I know he probably didn’t want in any way to offend anyone. I don’t think of this as the same as whitewashing races and ethnic groups. Plus art house films aren’t usually pushing anything more than concepts surrounding religion and not truths. After Mel Gibson the subject can get messy in Hollywood.
I come from a family that is one side converted from Catholic and the other side Jewish. We were exposed to both and it was a long journey to get to full acceptance from both sides. I even considered myself Agnostic for a time but recently just realized I was just a person who questions a lot and doesn’t like zealots. My aunt would tease me-Oh look my niece the Agnostic. I don’t judge other people’s beliefs unless they try to infringe on mine.
I am curious to know how his family operates around their religion. It’s different for everyone but I do wonder if they celebrate the holidays as we do. It does get funny when some religious people claim they are kosher and then catch them eating shrimp tacos during Passover. Lol
the way he describes it, it sounds like they’re raising the kids Jewish (as opposed to calling them “half Jewish”) so they probably live like the average not-too-frum conservative/masorti or reform Jews celebrating high holy days/Chanukah/Passover to some degree.
That sounds about right. I can see that.
“I even considered myself Agnostic for a time but recently just realized I was just a person who questions a lot and doesn’t like zealots.”
We’re twinsies! Though if asked, I would have to say I’m agnostic. A lot of people think agnostic and atheist are the same thing (not you, but maybe your aunt). I wish what people believed wasn’t the primary question to ask about a person. It’s more about how we behave. But that’s a very Jewish thing to say… LOL.
That’s funny about the shrimp tacos. As Jews assimilated in the United States, they started rebelling by going out to Chinese restaurants for shrimp in lobster sauce on Friday nights. Chuckle. Certain things seem to be okay outside the house … you know, like the way calories don’t count when they’re in a restaurant.
As for the actor and his wife, more likely than not they are in the Reform movement, which is more accepting of intermarriage. As Jewish tradition still seems to respect matrilineage, it makes it easier that the Jewish partner is their mother, not their father. If he says they’re being raised Jewish, odds are those kids have gone to Hebrew school with bar/bat mitzvot.
I know what you mean totally about it being easier if it is the mother. I think many people would be surprised to find how many wives of famous Jewish men converted. Sacha Baron Cohen comes to mind.
My older relatives were the last to really speak Yiddish. But I find I use some words as do my children.
They don’t whine they kvetch.
It’s not the fashion business it’s the schmata business.
Christmas Day dinner at a Chinese restaurant is a must for any self respecting Jewish family. Lol
The holidays and milestones were very important to me even though we are Reform. I couldn’t and can’t imagine my children not having those things. After high school we all did a gap year partially spent in Israel and some of my family went to college there. But my parents are very liberal and accepting so we learned to be that way too. Some of my relatives are not as open but it is usually the older ones.
Similar, tho my parents weren’t religious, one of my grandparents was an atheist, and I learned what I learned on my own. The values were always there. It’s been interesting watching some Jews who are younger actually get more and not less conservative … it seems like the middle is going away and people are either dropping out/going “cultural Jew” or going toward strict observance/Orthodoxy.
Had it not been for the Holocaust there would be many millions more of us. But apart from that great loss, Judaism’s ability to flex with the times accounts for its survival, so we have to keep going with our little flow.
At least when the kids are done kvetching they give us something to kvell about.
My SIL doesn’t like Chinese food – she’s a bizarre anomaly of Jewdom. If it weren’t for her Jewfro, I’m not sure we’d believe her that she’s a MOT
Haha You two are cracking me up.
ol cranky’ sister is putting her tribal membership card in deep peril. The Jewfro describes my brother’s hair totally.
How about my grandmother wiping the schmuts off our faces after eating chocolate.
I do find people including myself contemplating what being Jewish means. I have noticed the younger members of my family becoming more observant. It is like a rediscovery as we learn more about our history. It brings it very close when we do our family tree and so many branches are simply gone with no continuation after the war.
Ugh, I distinctly recall American Pastoral as the first terrible renowned novel I’ve ever read. A pretend-intellectual oversexed soap.
Actually, Joaquin Phoenix, American as he might be, IS Jewish –so I don’t see why there’s any controversy about “whitewashing” in his playing Jesus?
Per the Woody Allen thread, I won’t see it as I don’t see films with Ewan McGregor due to his work with Roman Polanski, which is a shame because American Pastoral is one of my all-time favorite novels. I don’t care how attractive he is, I can’t justify it to myself and I don’t understand how, as a father of daughters, Ewan justified it to himself.