Ewan McGregor recalls discovering 'pyramid of poo' in Trainspotting-like moment at public toilet in Russia

Ewan McGregor is looking back on a crappy experience he had in Russia.

The Moulin Rouge star recently recalled discovering a horrific public restroom two decades ago in a moment that sounds uncannily reminiscent of his iconic toilet scene from his breakout film Trainspotting.

McGregor said he was "in the middle of f---ing nowhere" in eastern Russia shooting his travel series Long Way Round in 2004 when the incident took place. "Then there was a bus stop that was a toilet," the actor told The Guardian. "We opened the door, and there was a wooden toilet, but there was a pyramid of poo coming out of it."

The logistics of the pit-stop nightmare were puzzling to him. "It filled up, and they didn't stop pooing on it," McGregor marveled. "But I was thinking: 'How did they get up the top?' You'd have to be standing up like…"

The actor then climbed atop a counter during the interview and gestured with his hand above his head, signifying a height of at least nine feet. "Anyway, we were just all taking pictures of each other next to it," McGregor said. "That was not a comfortable toilet."

If McGregor didn't sound that fazed by the revolting restroom, perhaps it's partly because of his onscreen history with nauseating toilets. In one of the most famous scenes in 1996's Trainspotting, his character, Renton, is forced to relieve himself in the "worst toilet in Scotland" — and then sift through his own waste to find his misplaced opium suppositories before climbing headfirst into the commode, which serves as a gateway to a surreal ocean world.

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"I did used to show my kids the toilet scene, just for a laugh," McGregor said at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in 2023. "It's a unique situation, perhaps, for a father to be able to show his children footage of him going down the toilet."

Trainspotting director Danny Boyle reflected on filming the scene in a 2017 interview with Entertainment Weekly. "It was meticulously clean," the filmmaker said of the bathroom set, noting that the excrement was actually chocolate. "The set smelled really sweet — delicious, really, kind of like a confectionary. You could have licked the chocolate right off the bowl." 

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Earlier in the Guardian interview, McGregor remembered another challenging moment from his adventures during that period: eating testicle soup while staying in Mongolia as he and his travel partner, Charley Boorman, made their way from London to New York on motorcycles.

"I did do that," the actor said. "I ate mine. Charley didn't get his down. Charley's came flying straight back out again. But I got mine down. It was all right."