New interviews with Ewan McGregor, Josh Gad & more

Ewan McGregor (Lumiere)

The Hollywood Reporter: Ewan McGregor Recalls Embarrassing First Meeting With George Lucas, Talks Directorial Debut

QUESTION: I’m a sophomore film major here t LMU. And I was wondering how do you approach a character like Lumiere in Beauty and the Beast? That was originated in an animated feature.

MCGREGOR: You just approach every character like it’s a brand new thing, it’s a new clean slate. The fact that it’s been done before is neither here nor there really or me. I mean I think if they wanted to just that character again, that’s not true because he sort of did create that character. I don’t know the answer to your question. [LAUGHTER] I just approach it like I would everything else. I mean I didn’t spend time watching the original animation and trying to make my Lumiere like that. I mean I must have seen it in the past. And I got a very strong sense of who he was from the script. And I assume that the script was this version of this film we were making, not the animation. And so I sort of made him like that. But the nice thing about Lumiere and in this case was that I got to do it several times. He is animated in most of the film and then at the end, when we’re released from the curse, it’s me. And that meant I was allowed to record all of the dialogue just fresh. And then I was able to do it again. The challenge was the French accent because they wanted a sound. They didn’t want me to do the French R sound. And when you take the R sound out of French accent, and you just replace it with an R, it sounds Mexican. [LAUGHTER] So I had to try...

GALLOWAY: Did you speak French?

MCGREGOR: My wife’s French. I mean I speak a bit of French but I’ve lived amongst French, you know, most of my adult life. But I found that a bit of a challenge. So anyway, we went back and we re-recorded it all again and I’m happy to say it sounds a bit more French though.

Josh Gad (Le Fou)

Luke Evans (Gaston)

Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Plumette)

Source: Live with Kelly, HeyUGuys, MTV, Entertainment Tonight, The Hollywood Reporter