Based on Amor Towles’ best-selling novel, the Showtime limited series A Gentleman in Moscow tells the story of Russian aristocrat Count Alexander Rostov (Ewan McGregor), who found himself banished to the attic room of the Hotel Metropol and threatened with execution on the order of a Bolshevik tribunal. With his life contained within the walls of the opulent hotel and the years after the Russian Revolution continuing to pass, the Count builds a life, friendships, and love from within. By no longer being able to go outside and experience the larger universe, the Count takes a journey of emotional discovery that gives him perspective on the world and the people around him.

During this interview with Collider, McGregor talked about why he wanted to play the Count so badly, how he built the character, being thrilled to work with wife Mary Elizabeth Winstead (who plays film actress Anna Urbanova) again, how a real-life relationship can benefit romantic scenes, bonding with his mustache, and why he decided to perm his hair for the role. He also discussed why he hasn’t directed since American Pastoral, and that he’d love to do another musical, even if it has to be onstage.

A Gentleman in Moscow A Russian aristocrat is spared from death and placed on house arrest while the Bolshevik Revolution plays out before him.Release Date March 29, 2024 Main Genre Drama Seasons 1

Ewan McGregor Was Dying To Play the Count in ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’
Image via Showtime

Collider: When this came your way, did you read the book first or did you read the script first? What was your first introduction to this whole world?

EWAN McGREGOR: I find it difficult to remember. I’m pretty sure I must have read an early draft of episode one, and I might have read early drafts of a couple of other episodes. I don’t remember. What I do remember is having a call with Tom Harper, who was our executive producer and a director in his own right, and he introduced me to Ben Vanstone, who was the writer and showrunner. I had a great chat with Ben about the character and about the novel and about what he wanted to do. There was no director attached at the time. I wanted to play the Count so badly, from just those interactions. And then, I started reading the novel and I took my time with it because I was enjoying it so much. It is thrilling to read a novel, knowing that you are going to play that role.

I’ve had that experience a few times in my life, and it’s very satisfying because you get so much detail from the writer of the novel, and all of it is going in your mind and being stored away, to be able to then play him at a later date. By the time I was about halfway through the novel, we had Sam Miller come on as our director, and I was extremely excited about that because I had loved, very much, his show, I May Destroy You. I thought it was one of the best pieces of television of that year, a few years ago. He’s a very modern director who’s very much not by the book and has a very light touch, but a very firm idea what he wants with the camera. The camera movies in a modern way around us, which might go against the idea of a period piece, but I thought that was really exciting. And so, as the team amassed and the piece was cast – Mary was cast in the role of Anna and all the other wonderful actors were cast in their roles – I finished the novel before we started to shoot.

Related ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’ Review: Ewan McGregor Effortlessly Charms From a Gilded Cage The Showtime series, adapted from the novel by Amor Towles, delivers a sprawling historical epic while confined to a single location.

A lot of times, the novel can feel very different from what the adapted project becomes. Did this feel very much like the same guy?

McGREGOR: Yes. The changes that occurred were structural changes to suit the medium of television. Ben was always driven by Amor [Towles]’ novel and by the feeling of it, the spirit of it, and the flavor of it. He’s been very faithful to the book, although he has made some changes with character and time and place. Everything about my creating of that character, working with the costuming department and makeup and hair, was totally driven by the Count I imagined when I read Amor’s book.

Ewan McGregor and Wife Mary Elizabeth Winstead Were Excited To Work Together on ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’
Image via Showtime

Chemistry is one of those strange and undefinable things, but it’s easy to recognize it when you see it. Just because you have chemistry with someone in real life, it’s not necessarily guaranteed that it will translate on film, so how did you find the experience of working with your wife, Mary Elizabeth Winstead? There’s such a playfulness in so much of what you guys do together in this series. What do you most enjoy about how she approaches the work and what she brings to the scenes that you shared?

McGREGOR: That’s what we have always had. We met working together on Season 3 of Fargo and I was struck by her then, by how similarly we work. There was not a great deal of discussion or pre-planning. There’s a rehearsal of sorts, but everything is happening while it’s happening. Some actors are more analytical and they plan their performance through a scene. With where they want the highs and lows to be, but Mary and I don’t do that at all. We just try to put ourselves in the moment in the character and see what happens. Even if you’re remembering the same lines, it feels very real and it feels improvised, even if it’s not.

I was just thrilled to get a chance to work with her again. We’re always looking for something that we can do together because we love working together so much, and this came along. As I was already attached to play the Count and was reading the novel, and I’d read a great scene in the book, and I’d look over at Mary and go, “There’s a great role in here.” And then, after I finished the book, her interest was piqued about Anna. A lot of their storyline happens off camera in the novel. Months go by, or years go by sometimes, and you realize that they’ve been having a relationship all this time, but you don’t necessarily know about it from what’s been described in the book. We see more of it in our piece for television. So, when I knew Mary was gonna play the role, it was a great day.

It’s such a fun character that she plays because she’s a whirlwind every time she comes into a room.

McGREGOR: When you see what she does with it, her arc in the piece is really excellently played. She’s a really brilliant actor. You see, by the end, how much Anna has changed and how important she is, not only to the Count, but to Sofia and to the staff in the hotel. There’s a real arc to her character from the beginning of the story when she’s this movie diva.

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It seems like having a relationship would make the romantic scenes easier, but there are also more emotional moments in this as well. Does it make those easier, or does it make those more challenging?

McGREGOR: It’s just all a benefit for us. It’s all part and parcel of the same thing. It just feels good to work with each other, whether the scenes are happy or sad. Some of the more emotional scenes were amazing to play, and we didn’t have to look very far for the emotional arc of the scene because it was there. We could put ourselves in the moment. It all came very easily.

Ewan McGregor Had To Wear His ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’ Moustache For a Year and a Half

It sounds like you went through a bit of a process getting the moustache right for this. How difficult was that to maintain throughout? What was it like to let go of it? Did you want to get rid of it immediately?

McGREGOR: Yes. Because we’d had to stop for the actors’ strike and we had no idea how long or short that might be, I kept it. I obviously wasn’t gonna shave it off, so I had it for the whole strike. And then, after the strike ended, we had already decided that we couldn’t pick up our shooting until the beginning of this year. So, by the time I did my last day of shooting in Halifax, in the northeast of England, and I shaved it off on wrap, I’d had it on my face for a year and a half and I was ready for it to go. But as I was driving around, I’d forget that it wasn’t there and my fingers would come up to twirl it and I’d have to remember that it wasn’t there anymore. I’m still wearing the phantom mustache for the Count.

I read that you also got your hair permed for this, and you said that it was something you hadn’t done since the nineties. What made you get a perm back then? Was it also for a role?

McGREGOR: Yeah, it was for my first ever role. I left drama school to play the character Hopper in Dennis Potter’s series Lipstick on Your Collar. It was the first thing I’d ever done, straight out of drama school. I’m fair-haired, and he wanted the character in that to have black curly hair, so I permed and dyed my hair for that job, back in 1993. And so, I had a perm then. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but it was right for that character. And then, there was a picture on the cover of Stendhal’s novel, Le Rouge et le Noir, and I played that role in a TV adaptation shortly after Lipstick on Your Collar. I spent a lot of time with that novel, and there was a painting on the front of that novel, of an aristocrat who had slightly high, dark hair and he was very pale-skinned. Scarlet and Black was set in a different time period from A Gentleman in Moscow. It was much earlier than our piece in the 1920, but there was something about that striking cover that immediately sprung to mind for the Count. I thought, “That’s what the Count should feel like.”

I thought it was important that he stuck out in this hotel. As an aristocrat at the beginning, it’s important that his clothing, but also his demeanor and his manners are from a bygone age, even though it’s just recently bygone. I wanted him to feel different from everyone else. There was something just about his high, foppish, curly hair and this massive moustache that he didn’t shy away from. He is adamant about being himself, even though society has changed so drastically overnight. I thought it was important to go for it, and I liked it. The perm is something that every guy should do once in a while. I would just encourage people to do it because it’s super fun to have curly hair if you’re not used to it. I liked it. I only did it twice. I did it once at the beginning, and then shortly afterwards, we had to do it again because one bit of it didn’t take well, but that lasted the whole job. As he gets older, I wanted it to get less full to start sweeping it back. It lasted forever.

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Do you know what you’re going to be working on next?

McGREGOR: I’m making a movie (Flowervale Street) with Anne Hathaway in Atlanta, and I’m excited about that. It’s a really interesting genre piece. I had never met Anne, so I was looking forward to working with her very much. And then, after that, I don’t know.

Ewan McGregor Definitely Wants To Direct Another Movie
Image via Showtime

Have you thought about directing again, sooner rather than later?

McGREGOR: Yeah, I’d really like to. My experience with American Pastoral was so amazing and intense. It also just takes up so much of your head and your life, and I’ve wanted my head and my life to be in my life, over the last five, six or seven years. I’m always hoping that the next story will find me, although I’m not actively looking for it. But who knows? I definitely want to direct again because I loved it so much. I would certainly like to do more of it, but I also recognize that you’ve gotta be able to sacrifice so much of yourself in order to do it, or at least I did. I don’t know. Maybe you don’t have to as much as I did, but I did. I don’t think I did anything other than make that film for a year and a half. That was it.

Over the years, have you thought about or had any desire to do another live-action musical? Has that opportunity just never come around again?

McGREGOR: Yeah, I’d love to. I’d like to do another musical on stage. I’m not offered musicals in movies because there are so few of them. I don’t know if it’s because Moulin Rouge is such a mark in musical film that people don’t see me in other musicals. Maybe I’m just forever Christian in that. I don’t know. I’m not offered many. But on stage, I did Guys & Dolls in London for six months, and I loved it. There’s something I’m thinking about, which could come to fruition or not, but maybe on stage.

A Gentleman in Moscow airs on Showtime and is available to stream at Paramount+ with Showtime. Check out the trailer:

Watch on Paramount+