May 1, 2000
Daily Mail 
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Isn't it just a bit cavalier to cast a Scottish film star as Cromwell?

Roundhead role for Ewan McGregor cooked up during stint in Australia Brian Pendreigh

THE casting will doubtless raise a few eyebrows. Scottish movie stars Ewan McGregor and Dougray Scott are to play two of English history's most famous historical characters in a new GBP 12.5million movie.

The pair are set to play Oliver Cromwell and Thomas Fairfax in the Civil War epic which they dreamed up during a break in their filming schedules in Australia.

Scott has agreed to star as Fairfax in the historical drama for McGregor's Natural Nylon film company, and McGregor is now considering joining him on screen as Cromwell.

Producer Kevin Loader said: 'Cromwell should be ten years older than Fairfax really, strictly speaking, but this is something Dougray would dearly love.' With McGregor acting as best man recently at Scott's wedding to long- time girlfriend Sarah Trevis, the two actors are close friends.

They certainly had plenty of time to discuss Cromwell and Fairfax while stuck in Australia for months on protracted shoots for their new movies.

McGregor was making the period musical-drama Moulin Rouge with Nicole Kidman, while Scott was co-starring with Kidman's husband Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible 2.

The Cromwell and Fairfax film will begin at the end of the Civil War and focus on Cromwell's relationship with a man who was not only a brilliant general and politician but also a poet.

Fairfax opposed Charles I's execution and withdrew from public life after refusing to lead an invasion of Scotland.

The period continues to excite strong emotions among historians, but it is the prospect of two Scots in the English lead roles that is likely to provoke most debate. Veteran actor Nigel Havers described the number of English roles going to Scots as 'an absolute scandal'.

But Scott believes it is high time Scots got their chance at stardom and has applauded the number of Scottish actors emerging on an international level.

Tom Cruise handpicked him to play the villain in Mission Impossible 2 after seeing him as a thug-gish policeman in the flop Twin Town, although he is perhaps better known for the romantic comedy This Year's Love and the Cinderella story Ever After, in which he starred with Drew Barrymore.

Scott and McGregor followed the same drama course at Fife College in Kirkcaldy, although the road to stardom has been rougher for 34-year-old Fife-born Scott. He has admitted he would have given up acting, except he was not qualified to do anything else. Now Scott' s stardom seems guaranteed with Mission Impossible 2 and a starring role alongside Titanic star Kate Winslet in one of the biggest British films of the year, Enigma, which began shooting last week.

Mission Impossible 2 opens in the United States on May 24 the Memorial Day weekend slot reserved for big summer 'event movie', and could see Scott transformed into a major star.

McGregor, whose career has been littered with successful and less successful films since his starring role in Trainspotting, saw his bankability soar after appearing as a young Obe Wan Kenobi in the latest multimillion-dollar Stars Wars blockbuster, The Phanton Menace. Moving in the highest celebrity circles, McGregor has been pictured out on the town in Sydney with his new friends Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise. But even they found the Scot a handful after he decided to join in a drinking binge at Sydney's notorious Mardi Gras celebrations.

Alongside his wildness, McGregor maintains a reputation as a family man and has rented a luxury villa in a Sydney suburb so that his young daughter Clara and French wife Eve can join him on set during his current grueling Australian film shoot.

Known as a workaholic, McGregor had been trying to cut back on a punishing five-films-a-year schedule after a medical scare three years ago, when Clara contracted suspected meningitis while her father was away shooting an episode of the American series ER in Canada.