10 Actors Who Gave Their Best & Worst Performance In The Same Year

Having already impressed a year prior in Shallow Grave and, to a lesser degree, Blue Juice, 1996 was when Ewan McGregor launched himself to superstardom.

So much of said 'launching' was down to McGregor's career-best turn as Mark Renton in Danny Boyle's Trainspotting, whilst Brassed Off was another '96 effort for which the Scot also received praise.

Shining a spotlight on the drug addiction and poverty that was rife in certain areas of Edinburgh, Trainspotting was an engaging, entertainment, uber-cool picture that forever had a gut punch waiting around the corner. And as Renton - or Rent Boy, as his pals called him - McGregor was marvellous as the addict desperate to escape the long, long reach of that urge for your next hit.

While Trainspotting and Brassed Off made for a fantastic 1996 for Ewan McGregor - and that year's The Pillow Book was decent enough - the actor also took on the role of Frank Churchill in Douglas McGrath's adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma.

Trainspotting might have seen McGregor's Renton swimming around in sh*t at one point, but Emma saw him often spouting a sh*t-eating grin in a mixed bag of a movie. His delivery here felt extremely clunky, his chemistry with Gwyneth Paltrow's titular lead was nowhere to be seen, and even Ewan himself has since stated - such as to BBC Radio 1 (via Digital Spy) in 2004 - how he regrets doing the project because he simply wasn't very good in it.