‘Fargo’ Star Ewan McGregor Explains Why He Loves Playing Dual Roles

Ewan McGregor said that he would still be interested in playing dual roles in the future after his critically acclaimed double performance as brothers Ray and Emmit Stussy in Season 3 of FX’s “Fargo.”

In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, McGregor revealed why he won’t get tired of playing dual roles even though he has already done it several times before.

“It’s nice to be able to work on two different characters at the same time,” the Scottish actor said. “It’s a great challenge as an actor, and there’s something very satisfying about it.”

While he’s already played dual roles three times in his career, McGregor pointed out that it was only on “Fargo” when he actually got to portray two very distinct characters at the same time.

“Before when I did it in ‘The Island,’ one was a clone of the other, so they were very similar,” the Golden Globe-nominated actor said. “And when I did it in Rodrigo Garcia’s film, ‘Last Days in the Desert,’ one was Jesus and one was the devil, but the devil appeared to Jesus in his own form, so again, they were exactly the same character, really, although they had to feel like different people. But in ‘Fargo,’ they look completely different, and they should feel different, and then the challenge for me really as an actor was to try and play the two parts without it being a hindrance to the audience.”

McGregor said that his goal in playing Ray and Emmit was to make the viewers forget that the two characters were being played the same actor. “That was sort of what my challenge was that I set myself,” he said. “Otherwise, it’s a gimmick, and a gimmick doesn’t really hold over 10 hours of television, so that was my goal. And that's quite difficult to do, and it was quite satisfying. I was happy that I actually achieved that, so yeah, I loved it.”

As to how he managed to film scenes featuring both Stussy brothers, McGregor told TV Insider: “I had two other actors to help me, one to play Ray when I was Emmit and one to play Emmit when I was Ray. First, we’d rehearse the scene with me playing both men. They’d watch how I played both men and try to mimic that when we were shooting.”

While McGregor said that playing both characters gave him satisfaction, he admitted in a separate interview with The Hollywood Reporter last June that he enjoyed portraying Ray more than Emmit.

“Because they are both very different, they are satisfying in different ways,” McGregor said. “But in terms of liking them, I like Ray [better]. … What’s interesting that we’re doing this during this Trump era is that Ray has become the sort of embodiment of love. He’s got a soul and a heart. And Emmit is the businessman. He has a wife and a family. He’s a faithful man, but everything is compartmentalized in a way that he’s just sort of soulless. So, Ray is more fun to play because it’s much more fun to be in love than it is to be someone like Trump.”

McGregor is nominated for outstanding lead actor in a limited series or movie at this year’s Emmys for his double performance as Ray and Emmit.

The 69th Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony will be held on Sunday, Sept. 17, at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles and will be broadcast by CBS.