His role as Obi-Wan Kenobi is certainly what made Ewan McGregor a household name, but in order to land that part, the young actor had to first establish himself as an exceptional talent. Luckily, his early career was bolstered by a friendship and creative partnership with director Danny Boyle, which resulted in three outstanding opportunities for just that. Boyle’s first three movies, “Shallow Grave,” “Trainspotting,” and “A Life Less Ordinary,” all starred McGregor, and that gave the actor three nuanced characters and three stints with a master director in which to prove himself –- opportunities that McGregor did not waste.

Unfortunately, the friendship between the two soured at the tail-end of the 1990s when Boyle opted to cast Leonardo DiCaprio as the lead in his fourth film, “The Beach.” As McGregor had been the star of Boyle’s first three films, he’d developed a certain expectation regarding Boyle’s projects, as he explained years later when the two appeared together on “The Graham Norton Show.” When he wasn’t cast, McGregor said that he felt “rudderless” and explained, “It was never about ‘The Beach,’ it was about our friendship.” The frustration led to the pair not speaking for almost a decade. Luckily, they eventually mended fences and collaborated on the long-awaited “T2 Trainspotting.”