More! magazine, June 27 - July 10 2001
Once upon time there were three little boys. And you would have taken any of them home to your mum - if you could trust her to keep her mitts off them herself, that is. Together, the luscious Jude Law, Jonny Lee Miller and Ewan McGregor were the fresh faces of a new generation of British actors who vowed to take the world stage by storm. And boy, have they ever!
In the past few years, this trinity of totty from north London's Primrose Hill has taken Tinseltown by the short and curlies, raking in a fortune through their production company, Natural Nylon, and winning praise from movie-goers and critics alike. Which isn't too bad for a Scottish lad who always fancied the principal girl when she dressed as a man in panto, a young chap who helped Arthur Fowler out on his Eastenders allotment and a south London boy who was bullied at school.
Right now the boys are flying higher than they ever have before. While Jonny Lee Miller is awaiting the UK release of Wes Craven's latest splatterfest Dracula, and Ewan McGregor rakes in the plaudits for his role in can-can fest, Moulin Rouge, Jude Law (aka 'the coolest man in Britain', 'Britain's best'dressed man' etc, etc) is about to become an even bigger star, with the release of Steven Spielberg's futuristic flick, AI.
And although life for these young thesps is now all stretch limos, red carpets and showbiz bashes, it hasn't always been that way. Neither have they got where they are by luck alone - it's been work, work, work since day dot for this lot and, if there's a maxim that the trio share, it's that you make your own luck.
The Power of Three
The story starts way back in 1985, when a 13-year-old
Jude bumped into a mini Jonny Lee Miller at the National Youth Theatre.
The pair got on famously, and when the young Ewan turned up at
London's Hampstead Theatre Club to see Jude in a play, an unbeatable
team was created.
All of the boys were incredibly ambitious, especially Ewan, who, inspired by his uncle Denis Lawson (the fighter pilot in the original Star Wars), had been lusting for big screen fame since he started on solids: 'I've felt like a movie star since I was five - it's just taken me a while to get there!' he once explained.
Unsurprisingly, it wasn't long before the three thrusting young things got fed up waiting for the British film industry to take off and decided to call the shots themselves. While the rest of Britain's acting talent was waiting for the phone to ring, the trio teamed up with Jude's wife, actress Sadie Frost, and set up their own production company, Natural Nylon.
The boys had known each other so long that they had no fears about
mixing business with pleasure. 'Jude and I have talked about making
films together since we were kids,' says Jonny. 'We love films and
it's better to create and control than be a pawn in somebody else's
game.'
Jude agrees: 'We wanted to work together. There's no jealousy. If someone chooses you over me, they're not saying you're better, they're saying you're right for the job.'
Shooting Stars
Once the trio's star started to rise, it soared. Ewan
and Jonny found fame as junkies Renton and Sick Boy in Trainspotting
and, although Jude had a bit of a shaky start in the dire
joyriding flick, Shopping, he soon caught up with his pals with
his turn as snobby Dickie Greenleaf in The Talented Mr Ripley.
However, despite their rapid rise to fame and fortune, the friends
remain determined to keep their feet on the ground. 'I'm not anything
special,' says Jonny. 'If I believed I was, I'd probably disappear up
my own backside.' And he doesn't think much of the Hollywood game
either. He reckons that if he didn't have his own production company,
he'd have been 'dropped by Hollywood after a couple of years because
all the films would've been crap. No place on earth gets bored faster
with new faces.'
Even the gorgeous Mr Law refuses to be lured by the big bucks and bright lights available Stateside. He lives happily with his wife Sadie, and their sons Finlay and Rafferty and daughter Iris. 'There's no need to go to Hollywood,' says Jude. 'I have all my friends around and I know how it feels to be a kid growing up here.'
And although Ewan is raking in the Hollywood dollars after taking on the role of Obi Wan Kenobi in The Phantom Menace, he's just as proud of his roots, as he shows when recalling a night spent with director Danny Cannon in the early days of his career: 'There was me, Sadie Frost and a lot of young British talent who'd just started off, and he told us we were all wasting our time. That nothing good could come out of this country . . . Two years later, Shallow Grave comes out, things change and . . . See you later, mate! Twat.'
Jude, Jonny and Ewan - proving you can't buy better than a bit of British beef.
