Ewan McGregor: ‘I really let myself down’ by swearing

Actor Ewan McGregor has spoken about the time he embarrassed himself in front of celebrated cook Delia Smith – as he was so excited he kept swearing.

McGregor made the comments as he and collaborator Charley Boorman appeared on the podcast Dish from Waitrose, hosted by 6 Music star Nick Grimshaw and award-winning chef Angela Hartnett.

Describing meeting Smith at a Radio Times event, McGregor said: “I was so excited to meet her, but I kept swearing. I didn’t mean to, but I just kept dropping F-bombs all the time … I really let myself down.”

But Grimshaw said of Smith, who used to be a majority shareholder at Norwich City: “She won’t mind. She’s all right, she’s down the football, she hears it all.”

McGregor and Boorman, who have worked together for the past 20 years on their Long Way series of motorcycle adventures, discussed some of the delicacies they have eaten during their travels.

The two described how they were once invited for a meal in a ger, or yurt, by villagers in Mongolia.

Boorman told the podcast: “They said ‘would you like some food?’. And they had this big pot in the middle on the stove, and they lifted this, uh, this lid, and there were 200 testicles bubbling away with all their entrails.

“Yaks. You name it, it was all in there.”

Boorman continued: “I remember eating them, and Ewan is pretty good with eating, kind of, you know, difficult things, I took one bite and it kind of popped.”

Asked by Hartnett if the villagers noticed, Boorman replied: “Oh, they thought it was the funniest thing in the world.”

McGregor and Boorman’s latest adventure, titled Long Way Home, sees them travel from Star Wars star McGregor’s home in Scotland to Boorman’s in England, taking a detour via Scandinavia, the Arctic Circle and back through continental Europe aboard classic motorcycles.