Ewan McGregor didn't expect dinosaur sex in 'The End of Oak Street'
Ewan McGregor didn't expect dinosaur sex in 'The End of Oak Street'
Brian Truitt, USA TODAYThu, August 13, 2026 at 1:15 PM UTC
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Ewan McGregor says his big draw signing on to the sci-fi thriller “The End of Oak Street” was to work with Anne Hathaway, since “we both did musicals back in the day.”
Little did he know he’d also be sharing the screen with a pair of amorous dinosaurs. Which is a long way from the Moulin Rouge.
Directed by David Robert Mitchell and produced by J.J. Abrams, “Oak Street” (in theaters Aug. 14) centers on the Platt family: Greg (McGregor), Denise (Hathaway) and teen kids Audrey (Maisy Stella) and Brian (Christian Convery). Thanks to a wormhole, they find their Michigan neighborhood transported from 1982 to prehistoric times.
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Reading the script, McGregor dug that Amblin-era, Spielbergian energy where “families were painted in a very real way, not a sort of movie-perfect way that they can be sort of shown in today's day and age,” he says. “And then when the dinosaurs arrived, I was like, ‘What is going on?!’ So when I turned the page, it totally surprised me, but I loved it.”
Nasty, vicious dinos of various sizes hunt and eat their neighbors. Greg is the first to fully see one – and McGregor’s reaction is much different than, say, the awe of Sam Neill in “Jurassic Park.”
“Imagine you were chased by something, and you didn't know what it was, and then you hide, and you looked up, and there was a lion standing there, sniffing the air, trying to find you,” McGregor says. “You would s--- your pants. You would run very fast. I don't suppose it would be very much different than if it was a dinosaur, coupled with the disbelief of what the hell is going on.”
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And run McGregor did, as he, Hathaway and their young costars really hoofed it in the many chase scenes with fearsome, determined dinos.
"We weren't running a marathon or anything, we were just running down the block,” the 55-year-old Scottish actor says of the on-set cardio. “The running is sort of frustratingly slow, if you ask me. You have to always run so that the camera can keep up with you, and as an actor, you're always trying to look like you're running faster than you are.
“The heightened state of fear that you have to sort of keep up in the air for three months, that’s quite exhausting.”
McGregor shared chase scenes as well as emotional moments with Hathaway, as their characters are already navigating rough marriage waters before they get plopped in Jurassic Suburbia. One of McGregor’s favorite scenes happens when Denise takes a Polaroid picture of Greg and his sledgehammer as two randy dinos in the background get it on against a single family home.
“It gives us a moment of light relief in the middle of what is otherwise quite stressful,” McGregor says. “You get the feeling they haven't really shared a moment like that for a while, where they're enjoying each other's company and having fun. It’s part of them accepting each other again and hopefully getting to a better place as a couple.”
“The End of Oak Street” is an “amazingly attractive Saturday-night popcorn movie,” McGregor adds, “but it gives you more than you might expect from that.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ewan McGregor didn't expect dinosaur sex in 'The End of Oak Street'
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
