A-list actor looks unrecognisable – but can YOU guess who it is?
An A-list actor looked unrecognizable with a bushy mustache when he was spotted on a film set on Wednesday.
The 51-year-old star first came into the role to film on the set of A Gentleman in Moscow – where he stars.
The actor sported dark curly hair and the most conspicuous facial hair when he arrived to film scenes in Manchester.
He looked very smart in a navy blue suit, white shirt and brown shoes and with a pocket watch on his waistcoat.
Can you guess who it is?
That’s right, it’s Ewan McGregor!
A Gentleman in Moscow centers on the fictional Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, whose aristocratic upbringing puts him on the wrong side of history after the Russian Revolution.
Kenneth Branagh was originally cast as Rostov, but McGregor replaced him in the role.
The series is based on the 2016 bestseller of the same name by Amor Towles.
Set after the Russian Revolution, Ewan’s character is spared immediate execution but is relegated to an attic room in the opulent Hotel Metropol by a Soviet tribunal and threatened with death if he ever sets foot outside.
The series will see decades of history unfold outside the hotel’s doors as the character builds a new life and discovers the value of friendship, family and love.
Of the role, Ewan said, “It’s an amazing, beautiful story and I’m so excited to play such a fabulous role.”
The series was written by showrunner and executive producer Ben Vanstone, whose notable works include the Netflix hit The Last Kingdom.
The series is slated to air in 2023 internationally on new streaming service Paramount+ and in the US on Showtime
Ewan is currently wowing audiences as Sebastian J. Cricket in the new Pinocchio movie.
But he almost didn’t get cast as a cricket with a conscience, as it recently turned out.
Director Guillermo del Toro has admitted he had his heart set on another actor and even toyed with killing Pinocchio’s sidekick – which would have matched the original dark story.
Del Toro said, “Ewan was a surprise. We wrote it for another actor and I was stubborn about that actor.
“I wanted someone different… and I couldn’t look at cricket any other way.
‘The studio said, ‘Would you try Ewan?’ He’s a great actor, but that wasn’t the voice in my head. But they said, ‘Let’s try him. What’s the worst that can happen?”
Upon hearing McGregor’s audition tape, del Toro said he reached out to co-writer Pat McHale and said, “Am I crazy, or is the cricket the star of the film now?”
He admitted that he had imagined the Scottish actor “having a portrait of Schopenhauer on his wall and seeing himself as a philosopher and a storyteller”.
“But Ewan did one performance that I haven’t heard from him before. It has a noblesse and an extreme sweetness.’ McHale added: “We actually expanded his role when we saw how charismatic cricket can be.
“I mean, we thought about killing him early on – just, you know, get rid of him. I know that’s not cool.
“But instead we started saying, ‘Let’s put him in this scene and in this scene — and in this scene.’
In Carlo Collodi’s 1883 novel The Adventures Of Pinocchio, the character is called “The Talking Cricket” and is flattened with a hammer by Pinocchio. His ghost comes back to advise the doll boy.
Disney renamed him Jiminy Cricket in the 1940 film and is said to retain copyright, hence the name change in this version.