is a malicious, deceitful swine. He’ll whisper sweet words in your ear then stab you in the back. Even his so-called best friend is not immune to his lies.NO, scratch all that. Ewan McGregor – when he’s playing Iago in the Donmar Warehouse’s stage version of Othello – is a malicious, deceitful swine. The rest of the time, he is the same funny, easygoing, generous guy he has always been. Today he is being open and honest in a restaurant in St John’s Wood in London – a boundary ball away from Lord’s Cricket Ground, within hearing distance of Abbey Road and literally around the corner from his family home.McGregor doesn’t make a big show of an entrance. There is no agent, publicist or stylist in tow. Just the 36-year-old actor, dressed down in an old black pullover, black jeans and a battered leather jacket. A batch of good reviews for his stage performance lends him a certain Shakespearean distinction, but it will be back to business as usual in a couple of weeks’ time when the run of Othello comes to an end. Besides, any sense of gravitas bestowed by his theatrical credentials disappears as soon as we start talking about Cassandra’s Dream, the film he made with Woody Allen and which opens the Glasgow Film Festival this week.”Every young boy wants to get a good Woody,” he cackles, never one to knowingly miss out on a cheap innuendo. The film casts him as Ian, a cocksure young cockney who wants to break free from his father’s small restaurant by investing in a Californian hotel empire. Meanwhile, his brother, played by Colin Farrell, is in serious debt after a losing streak at the poker table. The money comes, but at a price: cue guilt, despair and the death of brotherly love. Annie Hall this is not. It’s as far from Allen’s “early funny ones” as East London lock-ups are from the Manhattan skyline.McGregor, however, couldn’t care less where the movie is set. “Having worked with Allen once, I’d work with him again in the blink of an eye. As an actor, you really have to raise your game. I wanted to work with him because there are only a few grandmasters of film-making, and he’s one of them. Tim Burton is another person who completely understands how he makes films. Ridley Scott too. They know what they’re doing, and it’s nice to be along for the ride.”Source: www.sundayherald.com