Ooh-er! The day Ewan's privates were on parade Sunday Magazine 2002

Acting comes naturally for Ewan McGregor but now and again he finds it hard going! For Star Wars hero Ewan McGregor, there are times when he just doesn't want to feel the force. But sometimes a man just can't help extending his light sabre. Ewan's had love scenes with some of the world's most beautiful women. He's been in the sack with Nicole Kidman, Cameron Diaz, Anna Friel, Rachel Weisz, and Kelly Macdonald. But it was lesser-known actress Alice Krige who caught him out. He laughs: "We were doing a love scene in the film, Scarlet & Black.

I had to lie on top of her and they wanted to see my naked bum and her naked thigh, so we couldn't wear underwear. Because of gravity and things, I got an erection. It was very embarrassing." Gravity? We've never heard it called that before, Ewan! He adds: "It was a case of 'Cut!-we'll go again'. I calmed down and we just got on with the job." Luckily for Ewan, 30, his French wife, Eve, 35 isn't the jealous type.

She says the only jealousy she ever suffered was when her husband had a sex scene with Kelly Macdonald in his first hit film, Trainspotting. "I was pregnant with Clara," says Eve, "and Kelly, who is delightful, was a beautiful fresh flower. Maybe it was my hormones, but it took me until after the birth not to tremble when I saw her." The happy couple, now have two daughers, Clara, five, and two month old Esther Rose, and Ewan's love scenes are more of a worry for him than for Eve. He was terrified of Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge: "She's hugely famous and there was an element of me thinking F*** hell, it really is her- in the flesh'. But after the initial nerves, we got on great. It was like having an older sister. I'd belch or swear or tell a rude joke and she's go 'Ewan!', as if she was embarrassed by me. It was amusing for me, because I would play up to it. I would think 'How am I going to shock Miss Kidman today?'"

Ewan's latest movie, the action-packed Black Hawk Down, is a much more serious affair. It's based on the true story of a botched US operation against a Somali warlord, which left more than 1,000 Somalis and 18 American soldiers dead. The recreation of the battle, with Ewan lining up alongside his former Trainspotting co-star Ewan Bremner and Pearl Harbor's Josh Hartnett, took four months to film in Morocco. "I just wanted to be home," he recalls. "Eve was pregnant and I wanted to be back, sitting on the sofa with her. But real soldiers have to put up with far worse- like getting shot at with real bullets."

Ewan met Eve on the set of the television series, Kavanagh QC. Was it love at first sight? "It was for me," he says. "I was living the life of Riley at the time- the bachelor around town. I then saw her across a crowded set and though 'God almighty'. My wife is fiercely beautiful and French and hugely in charge She looked like a woman who wasn't going to take any s*** from anybody. So I went after her, hammer and tongs. I remember thinking 'This won't be like anything else. This won't be like any other relationship'. And I was right. It hasn't been. I did not make the wrong decision. I was full of myself at the time, which was not a good thing," he says, "But, with Eve, she knows me better than anyone. If I get upset about something she's very straight with me. People are careful about what they say to me, but she doesn't worry about that, so I get it straight."

"Sometimes it hurts. But it's usually what you need."