McGregor was born in Perth Royal Infirmary, and was brought up in the nearby small town of Crieff, Scotland to James McGregor, a retired former school teacher, and Carole (née Lawson), also a teacher. His mother is the sister of actor Denis Lawson, the sister-in-law of the late actress Sheila Gish, and the aunt of Lou Gish. McGregor attended Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 1988 to study drama. Six months before graduating, he won a leading role in Dennis Potter’s six-part BBC series Lipstick on Your Collar, and has been working steadily ever since. He made his feature film debut in 1993 in Bill Forsyth’s Being Human. The following year, he earned widespread praise and won an Empire Award for his performance in the thriller Shallow Grave, which marked his first collaboration with director Danny Boyle. His major international breakthrough soon followed with the role of heroin addict Mark Renton in Boyle's film version of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting (1996).

McGregor has been featured as the male romantic lead in Hollywood films such as Moulin Rouge! and Down With Love, and in the British film Little Voice. He received excellent reviews for his performance as an amoral drifter mixed up in murder in the British film Young Adam (2003), which co-starred the acclaimed British actress Tilda Swinton.

He took on the role of a younger Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, a role originally made famous by Sir Alec Guinness in the original Star Wars films. McGregor took very special care (especially in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith) in his portrayal of Kenobi to ensure that Obi-Wan's mannerisms, speech timings, and accents closely resemble Obi-Wan's "Alec Guinness Self". In appearing in Star Wars films, he was continuing a family tradition of sorts: his uncle, Denis Lawson, had played Wedge Antilles in the original Star Wars trilogy.

McGregor is one of the few major male actors to repeatedly do full-frontal nudity in many of his films, including Trainspotting, Velvet Goldmine, The Pillow Book, and Young Adam. He also played gay or bisexual characters in two of these (Peter Greenaway's The Pillow Book (1996) and Todd Haynes's Velvet Goldmine (1998).

In 2005, McGregor lent his voice to two successful animated features. McGregor provided the voice of the lovable robot "Rodney Copperbottom" in Robots, which also featured the voices of Halle Berry and Robin Williams. He then voiced the lead character in Gary Chapman's Valiant alongside Jim Broadbent and John Cleese. Additionally in 2005, McGregor played two roles (one a clone of the other) opposite Scarlett Johansson in Michael Bay's The Island and then appeared in Marc Forster's Stay, a psychological thriller co-starring Naomi Watts and Ryan Gosling.

McGregor has narrated the STV show JetSet, a Scottish series following the lives of student pilots and navigators at RAF Lossiemouth as they undergo a gruelling six-month course learning to fly the Tornado GR4 — the RAF's primary attack aircraft. In theatre, he starred alongside Jane Krakowski, Douglas Hodge and Jenna Russell in the original Donmar Warehouse production of Guys and Dolls in London at the Piccadilly Theatre. He played the leading role of Sky Masterson, made famous by Marlon Brando in the movie, to much critical acclaim, and he received the LastMinute.com award for Best Actor in 2005. He was also nominated for an Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical.

McGregor is next set to appear opposite Colin Farrell in Cassandra's Dream and will co-star with Daniel Craig in Dan Harris' upcoming film adaptation of Glen Duncan's novel I, Lucifer.

A keen motorcyclist since his youth, McGregor undertook a marathon motorcycle trip with his friend Charley Boorman and cameraman Claudio von Planta in 2004. From mid-April to the end of July, they travelled from London to New York via central Europe, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Siberia and Canada on BMW R1150GS Adventure motorcycles, for a cumulative distance of 18,887 miles (30,395 km). The trip formed the basis of a TV series and a best-selling book, both called Long Way Round. En route the Long Way Round team took time out to see some of UNICEF's work in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Mongolia. The Long Way Round team have reunited in 2007 for another motorcycle trip from John o' Groats in Scotland to Cape Town in South Africa. The journey, entitled Long Way Down lasted from 12 May until 5 August 2007.

On 22 July 1995, in a village in France, McGregor married Eve Mavrakis, a French production designer, whom he met while filming a guest appearance on the British television series Kavanagh QC. They have two daughters together, Clara Mathilde (born February 1996) and Esther Rose (born November 2001). In April 2006, McGregor and his wife adopted Jamiyan, a 4-year-old girl from Mongolia. They currently reside in North London.


The Great Pretender (2008/I) .... Leslie Grangely/Bonnie Prince Charlie
I, Lucifer (2008) .... Declan Gunn
Number 13 (2008)
Incendiary (2008) .... Jasper Black
Jackboots on Whitehall (2008) .... Chris
The Tourist (2007) .... Jonathan
Cassandra's Dream (2007)
Miss Potter (2006) .... Norman Warne
Scenes of a Sexual Nature (2006) .... Billy
Stormbreaker (2006) .... Ian Rider
Stay (2005/I) .... Sam Foster
The Island (2005) .... Lincoln Six Echo/Tom Lincoln
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) .... Obi-Wan Kenobi
Valiant (2005) (voice) .... Valiant
Robots (2005) (voice) .... Rodney Copperbottom
Big Fish (2003) .... Younger Ed Bloom
Young Adam (2003) .... Joe Taylor
Down with Love (2003) .... Catcher Block
Solid Geometry (2002) (TV) .... Phil
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) .... Obi-Wan Kenobi
Black Hawk Down (2001) .... Grimes
Moulin Rouge! (2001) .... Christian
Nora (2000) .... James Joyce
Anno Domini (2000) .... The Stranger
Eye of the Beholder (1999) .... Stephen Wilson
Rogue Trader (1999) .... Nick Leeson
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) .... Obi-Wan Kenobi
Little Voice (1998) .... Billy
Velvet Goldmine (1998) .... Curt Wild
Desserts (1998) .... Stroller
A Life Less Ordinary (1997) .... Robert Lewis
The Serpent's Kiss (1997) .... Meneer Chrome
Nightwatch (1997) .... Martin Bells
Brassed Off (1996) .... Andy
Emma (1996) .... Frank Churchill
The Pillow Book (1996) .... Jerome
Trainspotting (1996) .... Renton
Blue Juice (1995) .... Dean Raymond
Shallow Grave (1994) .... Alex Law
Doggin' Around (1994) (TV) .... Tom Clayton
Being Human (1993) .... Alvarez
Family Style (1993) (TV) .... Jimmy