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The last time Arena interviewed Ewan McGregor, he was in combative mood. It was the morning after the first UK screening of Black Hawk Down, Ridley Scott’s action-stuffed reconstruction of the US mission in early Nineties Somalia, and journalists were giving the movie a rough ride. Although wrapped before the World Trade Center attack in 2001, Black Hawk Down released coincided with the war in Afghanistan, and sceptical British sensors were finely honed to any hint of "imperialist" propaganda. As the film unashamedly depicted the Somali conflict from the American troops’ perspective, it consequently found itself in the line of fire – accused of skirting over complex local politics and presenting indigenous combatants as "cannon fodder". True to his reputation as a forthright verbal scrapper, McGregor batted passionately for the film, which had been intended as a straightforward combat flick, although he now admits that "definding it to everybody was exhausting."
Eighteen months on, we were sitting in what could be the same Claridge’s suite (they all look alike), and there’s a more convivial air. Perhaps it’s the soft, avuncular bear, which has almost reached Obi-Wan Kenobi length, or the bookish flack-framed spectacles, or even that on this occasion he is not furiously smoking Marlboros, but the 32-year-old actor looks less wired, less primed for conflict. As well he might – the two films he’s about to see near-simultaneously released in this country showcase his talents at their substantial, versatile best. There’s the dank and unremittingly pessimistic British drama, Young Adam, in which a nihilistic McGregor glowers, growls and spits his way along the canalways from Glasgow to Edinburgh, grimly humping every female who crosses his path; then, by the way of complete contrast, there’s the arch but irrepressibly fluffly romantic comedy, Down With Love, which affords him the opportunity to play a witty, debonair and lovably caddish male lead – his Rock Hudson to Renée Zellweger’s Doris Day.
Both movies are, for very different reasons, a treat - Young Adam: a powerhouse of repressed emotion, warped sexuality and moral vacuity; brilliant, and you could see the opportunities Down With Love: a delightfully mannered, perfectly poised and mischevious take on the battle of the sexes in early-Sixties New York. In the former, McGregor plays Joe, a barge worker whose descent into depravity begins with brazen cuckoldry and ends in a willingness to permit institutionalised murder. In the latter he is Catcher Block, the louche and unreconstructed star reporter for KNOW magazine, "ladies’ man, man’s man, man about town," whose goal is to seduce young author Barbara Novak [Zellweger] and expose as fraudulent her feminist credentials. McGregor admits he has "lucked out" with their simultaneous release, aware that his performances will prove him once again to be on eof the least typecast actors of his generation. "Yes, and how watch me play Lear," he laughs. "Or Bottom! Actually, I’m looking forward to giving my Bottom someday…"
Jokes aside, you suspect that his choise of roles – although no doubt partially a conscious attempt to underline an astonishing theatrical range – is also a mechanism for maintaining his irrepressible enthusiasm for the job and stave off the boredom of reprising the same character over and over again (more on Star Wars and Trainspotting later). "Yeah, it is deliberate," he agrees. "I think I’m more likely to enjoy things that I haven’t done before. Down With Love, for example, was like being James Bond without the espionage – it was a fantasy part. The only thing I haven’t done yet is any kind of classy thriller – something like Seven. I quite liked watchingPacino in Insomnia - there were holes in it, but when I watched that film I really wanted to be in it. The problem is that on paper they’re often not very interesting, they read like a good episode of Morse. It takes an exceptional writer or director to elevate them above that."
Ewan McGregor has never been your typical movie star. When he says he cares about quality of material more than fatness of pay cheque he has the filmography to prove it, consistently putting his talent where his mouth is. Young Adam is a case in point. He’s already railed to the press about failed to get financed (some helpful suggestions from British industry bigwigs included shooting the movie in Luxembourg – "Okay, thanks very much, so you’d rather we made it outside of Britain? ‘Make it without you in it,’ was another great one. Thanks for that, too.") and you can be sure his fee won’t be buying many extra toys for the two McGregor children. But his passion for the project is unmistakable. "I knew I wanted to di it as soon as I finished reading the script," He says. "It was just so brillian, and you could see the opportunities as an actor were incredible."
It’s also a pretty depressing film…
"Yes, and I think that’s good too. I remember coming out of watching that Mike Leigh film, Naked. I was on my own one afternoon in the Haymarket and I was so depressed walking across Leicester Square. I was like: ‘Fucking come on then, someone have a go at me now because I’ll be ready for you.’ I got some kind of power out of the depression of the whole thing. Bleak is the new black."
Young Adam also features sex scenes that are close to hardcore pornography. In a sequence
that will likely become as famous as the Marlon Brando Butt-Buttering scene in Last Tango In Paris, McGregor’s character pours custard, brown sauce and a bag of sugar over a weeping Emily Mortimer, beats her with a stick and then angrily roots her from behind. In another, he indulges in a joyless alleyway knee-trembler. It’s not exactly erotic, but it is certainly explicit. "I think some of it is erotic because it’s so cold. I find it quite a turn-on, like some of the stuff with Tilda [Swinton], because it’s devoid of any emotion, it’s just about sex. That’s quite exciting because it’s like a male fantasy thing – you don’t have to involve your head."
It can’t be often you get the chance to pour custard over your leading lady…
"…and then smack her with a stick? Yeah, it’s not often that happens. Well, actually it happens to me a lot, ha, ha."
With Secretary and Young Adam, is 2003 the year of spanking women in the movies?
"I don’t know, I haven’t actually seen Secretary. But James Spader, he lucks out on all that, doesn’t he? He gets to video women wanking all over the place, which is something I was sorry not to have been involved in back in the day. ‘I can’t have sex with you, but if you could just have a quck wank while I film you – thanks, great!’ But Scens in Young Adam are quite hardcore, and I think it’s a good thing that gone are the kind of Eighties glistening body-fuck scenes from Hollywood movies wehre everyone always comes together. That’s not my experience in the real world. What we were trying to do was to make them realistic so they’re often messy or quick, or clumsy and dirty and disgusting. I mean, the one with Therese [the aforementioned alleyway scene] up against the wall is fucking horrible. It’s really graphic because he’s fucking her from behind with his trousers round his ankles and then when it finishes she picks up her cigarette – which is still lit – and smokes it, so it’s obviously really quck as well. I think those scenes are…I mean, we can all relate to that, can’t we?" Ewan McGregor bursts into his trademark cavernous roar. Recovering his composure, he continues. "And then there’s the scene with Ella [Swinton], where he’s trying to get out of bed because he’s worried her husband’s going to come back and she stops him by grabbing his cock and giving him a wank. Now, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that in a film – I got to play ‘falling back on the bed being given a wank’ and I’ve never done that before."
Was it an odd sensation going back to your wife at the end of the day and explaining that your day at the office involved…
"Fucking somebody against a wall? [Affecting a cheery ‘Honey, I’m home’ tenor] Yes, and then at about 4:30 in the afternoon Tilda gave me a wank!’ Actually, I went up on my own to Scotland for this one because it was a six-day-a-week-shoot. It would have been quite difficult because the character was such a headfuck. I’m not an actor who takes it home with me and all that stuff, but with this one I felt it was quite important to be on my own. I knocked about with Emily Mortimer when she was up there, but apart from that I went to work, went home, watched movies and went to bed."
It’s just a thought, but there are such things as no-nudity clauses, you know. They’re quite popular in Los Angeles…
"Yes, but I don’t understand them or why people would do them. Because if films really reflect life then we’re naked all the time. I’m personally naked twice a day at lest and I relate to my wife when I’m naked and my children sometimes. Nudity’s an everyday occurrence for me as it is for most people, if thye’re honest. So I think it’s quite interesting to play things naked and not be all ‘old auntie’ about it. I like the bravery of it as well – you get people in the press who are meant to be a bit hip and cool and they’re like: ‘Oooh! He’s got his cock out.’ And I just hink: ‘Come on, it doesn’t’ really matter. Emily did it, and Tilda did it, so if I didn’t do it, it wouldn’t be right. ‘This guy is all about having sex – that’s all he does. And sometimes he does it with all his clothes on through his flies, but a lot of the time’s he’s got his clothes off…"
If there’s one thing certain about the next six weeks of Ewan McGregor’s life, it’s that he won’t be getting naked in front of a camera. But that’s all about all that’s certain – three days after this Arena interview, he is due to fly out to Australia to start filming Star Wars Episode III. For a man as patently honest as h, talking about Star Wars has in the past appeared to be something of a trial. He clearly hated dodging questions and diluting the truth to suit directors and film studios (an art most actors soon learn, keen to keep management feathers unruffled), and yet he also clearly hates filming Star Wars, involving, as it does, acting on his own in front of a blue screen, having to imagine the reactions and movements of fellow actors and the host of computer-generated characters. No wonder the acting can sometimes look so wooden.
But, of course, Star Wars movies are of the very large pay cheque variety, which puts even more pressure on the participants to tow the Lucas party line. Having had his knuckles rapped when he described filming on Episode I as "not creatively rewarding", McGregor was in conciliatory mood when he talked to Arena shortly after completely the second instalment. ("I was very mouthy," he said then, "and not quite rightly so. It’s hard work, but we’re not being paid to do a job.") Today, though, knowing this piece will not turn until after he returns from Australia, he is in no mind to hold back. I ask him if he’s looking forward to the shoot.
"No, I’m not," he darts back, "because it’s such hard work. It’s weird to be going back to the play the same character for the third time, and although I’ll be happy to be in it when it’s done, it’s a miserable process making them. It just is. I wish I could say that it wasn’t, but it’s tedious and it’s very difficult as an actor to do that work in front of the blue screen with nothing there. You’re up there alone in front of this curtain. I wish we could do them here. I’m goinghalfway round the world, and I’ve got to leave my family for six weeks when I could do it in this room."
Can you tell us what’s going to happen?
Hayden Christiensen is expecting to face you in a lightsaber duel over a lava pit…
"I don’t’ actually know anything about it. I haven’t read a script…"
You mean you’re leaving for Australia blank, without any preperations?
"Uh-huh. I haven’t spoken to George Lucas for about a year and a half and I haven’t seen a script, so I don’t know how they expect me to be excited about it, because I don’t know what it is. Whereas with Young Adam I had a running dialogue with the director and we were both enthusiastic about the piece of work we were about to do."
So you feel with Star Wars you’re a pawn in the game?
"Absolutely"
Has the childlike excitement of playing Obi-Wan Kenobi also worn off?
"Yeah. I mean, nothing can take away the way I fell about the first three – or certainly the first two – filmd from the Seventies, and what Alec Guinness’s Obi-Wan Kenobi was to me as a child, but I don’t fell any part of that. I can’t see the ones that I’ve done in the same way, firstly because I’m older and secondly because all I’m aware of is myself struggling through it… It doesn’t take away form the fact that I love being in them because I do – I love that kids see them and like them, but it’s still the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It’s very constrained."
You said last time that you like Episode II more than the first one. Given the critical mauling it received, do you still feel the same way?
"I still think it was fine. I thought it was an improvement because there was more life in it. It got hammered – as did the first one – but I was relieved watching it."
Relieved?
"Yes, because it’s almost like you don’t know what kind of film you’ve made until you see it two years later. You watch it and you don’t have a fucking clue what’s happening. You’re in it and you literally don’t know what happens next."
McGregor is equally candid when it comes to his sometimes fractious relationship with the tabloid press and mass-market celebrity magazines. All movie stars complain about the paparazzi, but with most it’s difficult to imagine that they’d be anything other than miffed if the attention subsided. But with Ewan McGregor, his distaste for what he sees as gross intrusion into his privacy is heartfelt. He has formed a (possibly tongue-in-cheek) troupe of fellow performers called People Against Paparazzi, has called for a boycott of Heat magazine, calling it "a dirty filthy piece of shit", and said that photographers who take pictures of his children should be "severely beaten up." When I ask him if he likes being a movie star, he replies: "I like being an actor. I like playing leading roles and I love my job." But can he not understand why people might find his private life interesting?
"No, Why is it interesting? And even if it is, it’s none of their fucking business. I don’t have a problem with the guys outside cinemas at premieres, but it’s the guys who follow you around without you knowing and who hide behind buses and make my friend Jude’s [Law] life a misery. Those guys can fuck off as far as I’m concerned because they’re making an enormous amount of money and taking away my right to protect my kids. I never take my family to premieres and if I know there to be cameras around you’ll never see them, so therefore I should have the right to keep them out of magazines. I understand people will take pictures of me because I’m an actor and I’m in the public eye. That doesn’t mean I think they’re right to - I still don’t – but with my kids it’s nobody’s business. It’s unforgivable."
Do you really never all prey to the guilty pleasure of celebrity tittle-tattle?
"No, I try never to have the tabloids in the house. I won’t let my wife bring them in. I really have a go, because I say, ‘If you buy it, I can’t have an opinion against it.’"
Have you never watched Big Brother?
"No, although I watched Celebrity Big Brother last year – the Les Dennis one – which was great. I’m fascinated how people behave on a TV show which they’re volunteered to go on, but I don’t thinik I’ve got any right to know what Posh and Becks do with their kids in their garden."
What about Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones, who sold their wedding pics to OK! But suied Hello! For sneaking their own shots…
"I think in that case you’ve just got to shut the fuck up really. I don’t think you can invite Hello! Into your garden to photograph you one week and then complain about the press the next. I’ve never done that, so I’ve got every right to fucking moan about it, but Catherine doesn’t. There I go again, I said I wasn’t going to slag people off in interviews anymore."
Ewan McGregor seems both more optimistic and energized than ever. He plans to direct his first feature film "within the next two or three years – I have plans, but it’s too early to talk about them as I’m trying to get the rights to something," and would like even more variety in his professional life ("I’d like to be doing as much theatre as film"). Despite withering remarks about Hollywood in the past, for the first time he’s tempted to buy a place in LA although promises that he’ll never leave Britain for good. As previously reported, it seems unlikely he will sign up for Porno, the mooted sequel to Trainspotting, although he insists he hasn’t entirely ruled out reprising the role that made his name ("I’ll wait to read the script, but it would be doubtful because I wouldn’t want to damage Trainspotting by making a poor sequel. And I didn’t think the book was as good.") And despite his protracted rant at the more populist wing of the media, he agrees that he mellowed as he has entered his thirties. "I was very relieved to get to get out of my twenties. It’s much easier now. I spend less time with people I’m not interested in and don’t hang around in bars with people I don’t like anymore. I’m much more capable of working and then being at home and doing stuff with my friends. Before I was just trying to squeeze in too many things."
And the single biggest problem for Ewan McGregor right now? Of course, it’s Star Wars…
"I have to go to Australia on Thursday without my family because my daughter’s got to do a term at her school. That’s my biggest problem right now – that we’re not all leaving together."
Young Adam is out on September 26; Down With Love is out on October 3
). Ich finde es witzig, dass man an manchen Stellen die Lacher der Leute hört. 
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