Battle Scene Arena UK Magazine February 2002

During the late Sixties, American psychiatrist Dr Eizabeth Kubler-Ross established a seminar to examine the mental processes undergone by terminally-ill patients. The chief conclusion, published in her famous book On Death And Dying, was that people undergo five basic transitional phases of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. In the years since, reseachers have discovered the same mood sequence is experienced by any person or group grieving a profound loss, whether it be divorce, the death of a loved one or getting fired.

The process can even be experienced collectively by nation states - the most clear and recent example of which is obvious to anyone visiting the United States over the last couple of months. It is a testament to the openness of the American people that they appear to be processing the attacks on the World Trade Center so quickly. The looks of disbelief on the faces of New Yorkers lasted only a matter of days before the reality of a devastating assault on their homeland sunk in. And although they are still outraged by the guile and sheer bloodthirstiness of the attacks, this sentiment already appears to have given way to a certain amount of productive self-examination. The foreign policy promises on which George Bush was elected - decreased military intervention in faraway war-zones, greater distance from the UN, a space-based nuclear defence system - have been smashed to dust as surely as the World Trade Center itself. For better or worse, America has been persuaded to engage itself once more in the upheavals of the economically poorer world. The US, it seems, has begun the bargaining phase of its grief - working out why it is so hated in some parts of the globe, and what can it do to prevent such a catastrophe befalling it again.

What, you might ask, has this got to do with Ewan McGregor, a softly-spoken, brilliant young movie actor from Crieff, Perthshire? The answer lies in his next cinema release, the Ridley Scott-directed Black Hawk Down. Before September 11, by which time filming had already wrapped on the project, Black Hawk Down was looking like a straightforward action movie adaptation of one of dozens of best-selling books on western special forces' bravery. In the light of the war in Afghanistan, however, the film takes on a whole new resonance. It is set in Somalia, 1993, during the US attempt to resolve the local Somalian conflict, and tells the story of an American army raid in which two local politicians were captured, but which left 19 US soldiers dead.

After an early screening in London, the film has already come in for some criticism. It is accused of presenting the Somalians as 'cannon fodder' (1000 locals were also killed in the raid, and yet the action focuses squarely on the perspective of the American soldiers), and of limiting the political context to some early scene-setting (with the aid of story cards), a few philosophising speeches from Somali warriors and the occasional protestation from US Rangers that "What they think doesn't matter". To be fair to Ridley Scott, Black Hawk Down was conceived and produced in a very different global climate to the one we have post-September 11, and was presumably meant to be no more than an old-fashioned Hollywood battle movie, lauding the heroism of young men fighting for each other in a perilous situation over which they have no control.

The day after the screening, Arena interviews Ewan McGregor at Claridges Hotel in Mayfair. The actor's relationship with the media has sometimes been ambivalent (more on this later), but today he seems relaxed and friendly. A father for the second time since October, he is currently enjoying a six-month filming break after enduring a gruelling schedule for almost two years - it took a full 18 months of back-to-back filming in Australia just to shoot Moulin Rouge and the second installment of the new Star Wars trilogy. He is clearly well-informed about the issues surrounding Black Hawk Down, and, riled by the sparky press conference of the night before, is keen to confront the criticisms head on.

"I don't think it's a controversial film in any way," he explains. "It is just a factual account of a battle that happened in Mogadishu in 1993 - and that's it. It's a true depiction of modern war in an urban situation. Every single thing that happens in Black Hawk Down happened to somebody on that day. Nothing was invented to link two ideas. And I don't agree that we don't fill out any information about the crisis - the film starts with images of famine and the next scene is of the troops of Aidid, one of the Somalian warlords, shooting civilians to keep them away from the food that's been sent over to ease the famine." It's a fair point. But what made some of the screening audience uneasy was the unspoken subtext of the facts being weighted as they are in the movie. Put crudely: Johnny Foreigner makes a mess of things even to the point of shooting his own starving people as they clamour to grabe western food aid.

Now, let's see how the brave US soldiers carried out their instructions to 'restore order' and suffered dreadfully as a result. All of which may be true, but by omitting much if not all of the wider context, it smacks of Hollywood's tendency to offer a cleansed interpretation of events. "It is a film about the American perspective. If you want to make a film about the Somalian perspective you'd have to make 18 films, because there were four or five different tribes of warlords operating among civilians in Mogadishu. Every film in the history of war films has been made from the perspective of one side. Take Das Boot - it was made from the Germans' point of view. Again, a fair point. Perhaps what really stuck in the craw of the London critics is that while we may expect a partisan view from an entirely American production team, this film was directed by a Brit and stars several home-based actors (as well as McGregor, the cast also includes Ioan Gruffudd and Ewen Bremner).

Could the squealing mask a certain pique at a respected British contingent taking the American shilling and bowing to their uncynical paymasters? US newspapers have repeatedly referred to Black Hawk Down as a 'patriotic war movie' - is that a fair description of the film? "I think it's patriotic in the sense that the people who fought there were patriotic, and it displays their pride, not so much in their country, but in their regiment. So it's patriotic not in a bullshit American way - our boys doing the right thing - because you see the chaos that war is. But it is in the sense that you're fighting for the man on your right and the man on your left. It's about camaraderie. But my feeling is the film also shows very accurately what a fucking nightmare war is and that no matter how well equipped you are, urban fighting against that kind of enemy is absolutely hellish."

Sony Pictures clearly think it has potential to be a banker. At a time when most films featuring disaster and destruction have been put back or shelved, Sony have brought Black Hawk Down forward - ostensibly to bring it into Oscar contention - and whatever the British response, the issue of the American military as a global police force will inevitably strike a chord with the US public. "The big question I think, " says McGregor, "Is why did Clinton pull them out of Somalia? Nothing had changed. If the cause was valid before 19 lives were lost on the American side, why was it not valid two weeks later? It's a question that he's never answered,. The families of the soldiers who died out there would like to know, and he's never spoken about it. There's also a moment in the film when a Somalian asks an American soldier: "What do you think will happen if you capture Aidid? Do you think we'll just stop?" Well that's very poignant - just swap Aidid for Bin Laden there and you've got a hugely powerful sentiment coming from the mouth of a very similar man."

Actors may not be used to questions about world politics, but increased public awareness has brought the issues into sharp focus, and the expressed opinions of stars like Ewan McGregor, especially when they perform in movies like Black Hawk Down, do make a difference. It's a responsibility he's prepared to accept. "War should be the last resort, but I now feel that if you're going to go to do it, you should really do it properly. This kind of TV-friendly warfare is just causing more innocent deaths. I think bombing fuel dumps and runways and all that stuff may stop them in six weeks, but how many people were raped and killed and had their lives shattered in that time? Whereas if they mounted a massive campaign, surely they could have stopped it within a matter of days?

"However, I didn't like what I saw in a newspaper on the 12th September - there was a photograph of a guy's pick-up truck in middle America somewhere, and he had a huge US flag sticking out of the window and a big cardboard cutout on the tailgate that said: 'Nuke 'em'. I was shocked by that, because his country did nuke someone not so very long ago and 800,000 people were affected over four generations. So let's not nuke anyone, OK? And to their credit, they didn't launch an immediate revenge attack or anything silly like that. "I also think it's encouraging how big a shock it was that the New York attack was against civilians. During the Second World War, that was the norm - people were bombing entire cities - whereas in out generation, if someone hits a hospital or a bomb goes astray and hits a civilian target, then that's not cool. It's a good sign that we're moving forward somehow." We move on to the subject of a more clean-cut battle between good and evil - Star Wars.

The second installment will be released on May 16, and while the reaction to Episode I: The Phantom Menace was lukewarm, this in no way seems to have diminished anticipation for its follow-up. McGregor claims to have seen 60 or 70 percent of Star Wars: Episode II - Attack Of The Clones, and enthuses, almost as if he is surprised himself, that it's going to be: "Very good. Actually very good." By that, does he mean better than the last one? "Yeah, because we've done the groundwork and now we can get on with it. Episode I had to do a lot of work to set up all the political stuff with the Senate - and with a children's movie you have to be careful with all that stuff. This time there's more of a spirit of the first three. It's definitely hotting up."

He confirms reports that Obi-Wan Kenobi will play a more central role this time around, and says, "There was a big sigh of relief that we were able to get a lot more humour into it." Hayden Christiansen, who plays Anakin Skywalker is apparently, "A fucking lovely guy and brilliant to work with", and yes, he does quite like the fact that Obi-Wan gets to wear a beard. "Althought I don't know about the Jedi mullet." The jaunty comments are strikingly different to the opinions he gave after The Phantom Menace was released. Most provocatively, he moaned back then that acting in a Star wars movie was, "Not creatively rewarding." "I said a lot of things," he admits. "I was very mouthy about it and not quite rightly so.

The Star Wars films are unquestionably very hard work and technically very demanding. This second one was even more so - it called on me to be completely alone in a totally blue room for days and days, playing a character in a situation with other actors who aren't there. There's one scene where I'm across a table from an alien character who's not there, so I'm playing to mid-air and my reactions to what he's saying are my reactions to what I imagine he might do. You're completely triple-guessing the whole time. And the last thing the computer guys creating the alien character who plays opposite me would think of is to ask the character who plays opposite what he thought he was doing.

They're not even there on the day to see it. So, it's hard work, but we're not getting paid to have a great time, we're getting paid to do a job. The films are creatively rewarding because it's a unique acting experience and if you pull it off then you've risen to quite a hefty challenge." I still can't resist asking him if he actually enjoys filming on a Star Wars set. "Yeah," comes the reply, although the word sounds like it's been forced out of his throat like a lodged chicken bone. There next follows a full two seconds' silence, after which we both collapse in simultaneous laughter. "Playing a part in Star Wars is challenging, but I do love being in these films. I mean, 'm Obi-Wan Kenobi - how fucking good is that?" Pretty good, you'd imagine, apart from the hassle of George Lucas nuts braying 'May The Force Be With You' wherever you go. "Yeah, I still get that. I went to Berlin at the weekend to get an award for Moulin Rouge and there was one who slipped through the net at the press conference - this beardy guy who I just knew was going to ask about Star Wars. They're always bearded. And some people say it seriously.

I mean, what can you say back to 'May The Force Be With You'? I usually laugh and walk away, thinking, 'Don't be ridiculous'." The good-naturedness evaporates rapidly when our conversation drifts onto a third and final topic, the harassment - not from street-heckling fans, but media interested in his family life, and especially his children. "The idea that people have a right to your private life because you're a film star is something that I don't go along with. It's perpetuated by the media because it's what sells their fucking rags. It should be my human right to protect my daughter's identity so that people don't know what she looks like. I mean, I knew that Heat magazine had got photographs of me and my kids and I spoke to them through my publicist and said, 'Please don't publish pictures of my and my baby.

And if you have to publish pictures that you've had some cunt take of me from behind the windscreen of his jeep hiding at the end of my street, then put the pictures of me in but not of my children.' And even though I went to them personally - or as personally as I would go because I don't trust myself not to lose my rag - they published them anyway. I wonder how the editors of these pieces of shit will feel on their deathbeds that their only contribution to humanity is to steal people's privacy. What arseholes!"

As a married man, does he feel the same way that almost every time he plays opposite a beautiful actress, there are rumours that... "I'm having an affair with her? Yeah! I can't become offended by it, though, because it happens all the time and there's nothing you can do about it. My wife's fantastic and she takes it in her stride, so it's fine. Nicole and I had lunch in LA and someone wrote in the Metro - 'this meeting will rekindle rumours of their affair' and I thought, No, you're rekindling rumour of our affair. I'm a friend of hers for fuck's sake. Why is it unusual that we have lunch together? And why can't we have lunch together without 35 paparazzi photographers outside the restaurant? It's outrageous."