Daddy's bringing home the Emmy!
Ewan McGregor won his first Emmy award at the 2021 Emmys on Sept. 19 for his riveting performance in Ryan Murphy's Halston. And, his speech quickly turned into a love fest for wife and fellow actor Mary Elizabeth Winstead, plus their growing family!
"Mary, I love you so much," McGregor gushed during his acceptance speech. "We'll take this home and show it to our new little boy Laurie."
Winstead and McGregor welcomed their bundle of joy earlier this year, with McGregor's eldest child Clara McGregor, 25, sharing the news on social media on June 27. "Welcome to the world little brother. Congratulations to my Dad & Mary—this is the greatest gift," Clara wrote.
The 2021 Emmys was McGregor and Winstead's first night away from their five-week-old baby, and McGregor profusely thanked his four daughters, whom he shares with his ex-wife Eve Mavrakis after his win. "To my beautiful girls who I know are watching, Clara, Esther, Jayman, and Anouk hello to you too," he continued.
Backstage, McGregor called his win a "surprise" and revealed that his kids were even texting him during the ceremony!
"We're on this group chat and they're all in different places you know, three my kids are on the East Coast, my eldest Clara is 25 and she lives in New York, my 19-year-old Esther is a college in New York, and my 20-year-old is in college in Connecticut, my little is watching at home in LA and my son is 12 weeks old, so he's not watching this at all," McGregor joked. "But they were in my mind and they were texting in this group chat before I went up, you know, before my category came up and, 'I can't find it,' 'It's on CBS,' 'good luck, Dad!' and it was, they were very present in my mind."
On a more serious note, McGregor applauded the moving speeches before him. "There's just a lot of beautiful things said tonight and some of the other acceptance speeches and you know I have four daughters and the importance of women and women's rights and equality for women and equal pay," he noted. "It's so great to be in a room where people are talking about that and I always think about my girls and so that is moving and important."
As for returning home to his newborn? "It was very weird to leave the house without him tonight," McGregor admitted. "It was a very strange feeling. It was the first time we've ever gone out anywhere without him so it was odd. It'd be nice to go back home."
The Halston star also credited producer Murphy for "championing Halston and bringing it to Netflix" as well as voiced his gratitude for the "lovely cast" and crew filming during the coronavirus pandemic in New York City. "It's been a lovely pleasure working with these people," McGregor stated of the Halston team's "professionalism and passion" throughout production. "It was my great pleasure to work with you every day."
McGregor added, "I want to thank Liz Hammelstein for helping me find Halston's voice—you are the best in the business, I hope it is not another 20 years before we work together again and last but not least in fact, most of all, Daniel Minahan, who was our director for all of the episodes, it was just such a great pleasure to have someone to collaborate with like you. I love you, this is definitely for you."
McGregor was nominated against fellow Outstanding Lead Actors in a Limited/Anthology Series or Movie including Paul Bettany for WandaVision, Hugh Grant in The Undoing and Lin-Manuel Miranda and Leslie Odom Jr. for Hamilton. As presenter Taraji P. Henson quipped, the category mirrored the many "water cooler" moments from the past year.
Halston was nominated in four other Emmy categories; McGregor was the only actor from the limited series to be recognized. He was previously nominated for ER, Highlands: Scotland's Wild Heart and Fargo.