“I’ve been acting since I came out of my mom’s stomach,” says Esther McGregor. But not many people got to see her performances, she adds, since most were limited to her family’s living room. “My parents never let me do anything onscreen until I was old enough to executively make the decision, and also old enough to be a human on set,” the actor says. “My dad grew up on that, so he understands the perils of the dark side of being a young actress.”
Her father is Ewan McGregor—who knows about the galactic dark side too—and her mother is Eve Mavrakis, an art director and production designer for films. Last year McGregor put her own spin on her famous last name in two high-profile movies, playing Nicole Kidman’s daughter in the erotic thriller Babygirl and Tilda Swinton’s younger self in Pedro Almodóvar’s meditative drama The Room Next Door. In June she’ll appear in the Prime Video series We Were Liars, based on the gripping YA novel of the same name about a group of friends sifting through secrets on a private island off Massachusetts. McGregor plays Mirren, a character she found eerily similar to herself: “She’s this cheery sunshine girl who has this allure and charm because she’s a bit of a weirdo.”
That tracks, except for the weirdo part. In person, McGregor is effervescent and kind but clearly feels emotions deeply. She moved from London to Los Angeles with her family when she was 11. Her mother is French and not only taught her and her three sisters to speak the language, but also instilled in them a worldly sensibility. “I rely on my mother quite a lot,” she says. “She is my rock and my inspiration for a huge amount of myself and my ambitions.”
McGregor loved drawing from an early age—“it was a really good way for me to focus and keep my mind still”—and, during COVID, started to learn about tattooing through her then girlfriend. (She gave one of her first tattoos to her father, of a scarf he’d seen in a dream.) McGregor discovered that she loved the craft, both as an art form and a means of making connections. Four years ago, while a student at NYU, she and a friend opened a women-and queer-friendly tattoo shop in New York called Pink Ether. “Getting to meet people in this environment where my social anxiety isn’t off of the rocker because I’m working—I got to open up so much because it’s this true transaction of trust,” she says.
She still had some leftover energy, though. McGregor was part of an electronic-pop duo called French Thyme, and she has modeled for Miu Miu, Stella McCartney, and Fendi. She juggled all this for about six months before realizing it wasn’t sustainable, which her friends had predicted. “Everyone told me not to do it, and I was like, ‘Everyone needs to shut up,’ ” she says. “Truly, I don’t regret it at all because I learned so much about myself and my limits and my boundaries.” She stepped back from the tattoo parlor (though she keeps a short list of clients) and modeling, which she realized was not where she wanted to put her energy. “It wasn’t my passion,” she says. “I’ve never been more depleted or tired in my life.”
McGregor is entirely focused on acting now and is based in Los Angeles, where she lives with her geriatric hairless cat, Azure. (“She’s a French cat. She really only speaks French.”) After shooting a few short films and starring in the 2022 Amazon Freevee series High School, McGregor booked Babygirl and The Room Next Door, both of which speak to her affinity for international film. She’d love to make her own films someday—she’s inspired by French icons like François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, along with David Lynch’s abstract absurdism—but she’s keeping her focus on her first love. “As long as I’m acting, I’m happy,” she says. “If things don’t work out the way that they’re meant to, I’ll be writing my own theater pieces and putting them on for five people in my backyard.”
HAIR, ERICKA VERRETT; MAKEUP, PATI DUBROFF; MANICURE, STEPHANIE STONE; TAILOR, HASMIK KOURINIAN; SET DESIGN, COLIN PHELAN. PRODUCED ON LOCATION BY PREISS CREATIVE. FOR DETAILS, GO TO VF.COM/CREDITS.
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