The Shining 1980
In Doctor Sleep, McGregor
portrays the grown-up
version of Danny Torrance
from Stanley Kubrick’s
film adaptation of Ste-
phen King’s The Shining.
Doctor Sleep director
Mike Flanagan painstak-
ingly re-created Kubrick’s
version of the Overlook
Hotel, even down to the
booze behind the bar.
“Every bottle was the right
bottle,” says McGregor.
“There were moments
when the camera crew
would be down there in
the corridor, and I’m
standing alone, and I’m
f---ing in The Shining. I’m
literally in The Shining.”
Nightwatch 1998
McGregor recalls this film
about a hospital morgue
security guard with a
shudder, thanks to the
interference of now-
disgraced executive pro-
ducer Harvey Weinstein.
“He ruined that film,” says
McGregor. “That was a
remake of a Danish movie
with all these interesting
elements to it. Weinstein
made us reshoot every-
thing—everything that
was interesting about that
film, he replaced.”
Doctor Sleep 2019
In Doctor Sleep, McGregor
may be playing the
son of Jack Nicholson’s
haunted writer Jack
Torrance, but he didn’t
want to mimic the three-
time Oscar winner’s
performance. “I spent a
lot of effort just trying
to imagine what it might
be like to sound like
your dad, if your dad was
Jack Nicholson,” says
the actor, laughing. “But
I didn’t want to do an
impersonation of him.”
—Clark Collis
Halloween 1978
Ewan McGregor is not
a huge fan of watching
horror movies—the
Scottish actor was trau-
matized as a teenager
when his pipe band
visited Holland and
watched John Carpen-
ter’s original Halloween.
“I don’t know what they
were doing,” says the
actor of the band’s
hosts. “F---ing sadists! I
just realized that horror
films weren’t for me.”
DIRECTED BY Mike Flanagan
STARRING Ewan McGregor,
Rebecca Ferguson, Jacob
Tremblay, Kyliegh Curran
IN THEATERS Nov. 8
↑ Heere’s Ewan! McGregor’s grown-up Danny Torrance returns to the Overlook Hotel in The Shining sequel, Doctor Sleep
DOCTOR SLEEP
The actor, 48, stars in the sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 horror movie, The Shining—
and reveals his twisted relationship with some famous big-screen scarefests
EWAN MCGREGOR’S
LIFE IN HORROR
EW ● COM NOVEMBER 2019 43
JESSICA MIGLIO/WARNER BROS.
