We catch up with the actor ahead of his split role in the third series of Fargo.

When it was first revealed that a small-screen version of the Coen brothers film, Fargo – the offbeat, cult black comedy, set in the frozen climes of Minnesota – was in the works, pretty much everyone, including the show’s creator, Mr Noah Hawley, deemed it to be “a terrible idea”.

But the first season of the anthology series, starring Mr Martin Freeman and Mr Billy Bob Thornton and set in 2006, took home almost every award possible, and season two, set in 1979, and featuring Ms Kirsten Dunst and Mr Ted Danson, was similarly well received.

Later this month, season three (already underway on FX in the US) will premiere in the UK on Channel 4. Set in 2010, in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, it stars Mr Ewan McGregor in two separate roles, as Emmit Stussy, the wealthy, successful “parking lot king of Minnesota”, and his brother Ray, a parole officer barely scraping by. We caught up with Mr McGregor on set in Calgary, to discuss dual roles, President Donald Trump, and… Spanx.

Who are the Stussy brothers, and how are they different from one another?

Emmit is a square, down-the-line businessman. He’s the parking lot king of Minnesota, with 25 or more parking lots. He’s charismatic – we have pictures of him with dignitaries and he looks a bit like the Canadian president, in fact – and he’s a handsome frontman for this business, but his consigliere, Sy, is really the brains behind the operation and does a lot of the heavy lifting. He’s a married man, he loves his family and he’s never looked at another woman. Ray, meanwhile, is madly in love with his girlfriend Nikki Swango, who is amazingly beautiful, while he is maybe not quite the looker that you might expect to be with a woman like that. He works with criminals, and I like playing with the fact that he’s a dick with his cons, and then, when he’s with Nikki, he’s a complete puppy dog.

Which brother do you prefer playing?

Everybody on set loves Ray more – he is definitely more popular, he’s all heart, and so, playing all those nice qualities in Ray is exciting. But playing all the not-so-nice qualities in Emmit is also exciting. I don’t really have a favourite. Okay, Ray’s probably my favourite.

**How do you differentiate the physical differences between the brothers? **

Ray is heavier, so I wear padding to play him, and cowboy boots, which make him walk in a certain way. I had to put on a lot of weight for the first episode because there’s a scene in which we see Ray getting out of a bath naked. I had to get a belly, and then wear Spanx to pull it in when I played Emmit. I’ve lost the belly, because I only needed it for the first episode, but I still keep the Spanx because they make me feel like Emmit.

Are these special man Spanx?

It’s a sort of Spanx T-shirt. It compresses me, and gives me a more upright feeling as Emmit.

This season has been written and filmed against a fairly extraordinary political backdrop. Has that found its way into the show at all?

There are Trumpian moments with Emmit sometimes. He’s quite thin-skinned, and quick to lash out and blame other people for his mistakes. All of these seasons start with the (false) claim that: “This is a true story”, and that is very much a theme for this season – it’s all about alternative facts and what is the truth.

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