INTERVIEW EWAN MCGREGOR
It's not unusual for the successful professional to feel restless, but when actor Ewan McGregor heard the call of the open road he went further than most. Pierre de Villiers speaks to the family man about the pain of leaving home, and why he'd do it all again.

Ewan McGregor hates spending too much time away from his family. When the actor talks about the pain of being parted from his wife Eve and their two daughters Clara and Esther with no way of seeing them or giving them a hug, his voice fills with emotion. But despite this aversion to leaving his loved ones, McGregor left his home last year to spend three and half months on the road with an increasingly demanding mistress. When the 33-year-old strides into the room he is wearing an item of clothing that hints at the passionate affair: a black biker jacket. As much as he is a devoted husband and loving father, McGregor is also a man who finds a Zen-like peace and happiness in hitting the open road on a motorcycle.

"I didn't have a care in the world," sighs the actor as he recalls riding his beloved BMW through a remote stretch of Kazakhstan as part of the 20,000 mile odyssey from London to New York that he recently undertook with friend Charley Boorman. "I felt completely that I was where I was supposed to be. I never felt quite so right."

McGregor first fell for motorbikes when he was six years old. His father, Jim, was the chairman of the Round Table in Crieff, Scotland and organised a charity event for disadvantaged children. As a wide-eyed McGregor watched, a shiny red 50cc Honda was taken down to a field so a youngster's dream of riding a bike could be realised. Then McGregor was asked if he wanted to have a go. Racing across the field with the high-pitched whine of the engine in his ears, the kid who would one day be a movie star realised he had found the object of his desire. McGregor's love for bikes stayed with him through school -where he was desperate to get a 50cc to win back a girlfriend -into drama school and eventually onto the sets of the blockbuster films that turned him into a global star.

While shooting Moulin Rouge in Australia, McGregor demanded that he be allowed to travel into the outback, despite the fears of studio insurers. Calling concerned director Baz Luhrmann to one side, he told him: "I act. I am with my wife and kids. And I ride motorbikes. That's all I do." His speech finished, the actor rode off into the wilderness to enjoy some peace and quiet.

Such is McGregor's obsession with riding bikes that an epic, no-frills road-trip was always somewhere around the corner. And in friend and fellow thespian Boorman, whom McGregor met while filming The Serpent's Kiss eight years ago, he found a willing and able partner in grime.

"We started out thinking about a shorter trip from London to the south of Spain with our wives," McGregor remembers. "Then we thought about riding through China but I soon realised that wouldn't be very exciting either. I thought, 'what if we go from London and just keep on going towards America, ending in New York?'"

The itinerary McGregor and Boorman decided on was gruelling, even for experienced riders. In three and a half months, the pair travelled 20,000 miles, taking in 14 countries on a route through western Europe, the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia, across the Pacific to Alaska and through Canada and America, ending in New York.

To help organise and fund the trip they called in the help of a production company, which would turn their travels into a documentary series. After a few lessons in Russian and going on a training course designed for journalists about to enter war zones, McGregor and Boorman set off from London on 14 April last year. They were accompanied by a cameraman on a motorbike and, some way behind, two support vehicles.

For McGregor, leaving his family behind was extremely tough to deal with. "I had a very sad time leading up to us leaving because we were all aware that it was creeping up," he explains. "I found the first week the most difficult because you are looking down the barrel of three-anda-half months away. My eldest daughter Clara is eight years old and we went to her school to start a live geography project.

We would send stuff back to them and the class could track where we were. By doing that there was a real sense that she was with us. On the other hand, my little one Esther is only three; she was only two when I left, and she was the one I couldn't really make understand what we were doing. But, you know, it was strange how being apart from her had an effect on me. I started to see Esther whenever I spotted baby animals. For instance, whenever I saw a camel with a baby camel I just saw a wee Esther."

To ease the longing, McGregor was in touch with his family via satellite phone almost every night.

"It was difficult because I realised I couldn't carry this lump in my throat all around the world. It's too heavy," he smiles. "It got easier when I heard them on the phone. I couldn't have done it without those phone calls. As soon as I heard they were alright, that they had slipped back into routine, it became much easier."

As being separated from his family became easier, so the trip itself became that much harder. Roads with potholes the size of bomb craters, insect bites that left McGregor with a swollen face, and the occasional gun-toting local conspired to leave the actor searching for motivation. But doubts as to why he left behind the comforts of home and a celebrity lifestyle were dispelled by the kindness of strangers.

"We were given food by an enormous amount of people," McGregor remembers. "Especially in nomadic countries like Kazakhstan. It was lovely."

Having people shove food in his face as opposed to Star Wars merchandise for him to sign is a break from the norm that McGregor welcomed with open arms. And although he was harassed in a few countries by journalists thrilled to write about Obi-Wan Kenobi's latest adventure, the star could, for large parts of the trip, experience what it felt like to be just another weary traveller passing through town. It was a new-found anonymity that allowed McGregor to explore the importance of human interaction stripped of hidden agendas.

"We were at this checkpoint in the Ukraine, sitting beside the road when this little old lady came up to me," he remembers. "She shuffled over and started talking. I didn't understand and it didn't matter. It sounded really lovely what she was saying. I talked to her telling her what we were doing and she said she would pray for us. Those moments you will never, ever forget. You realise that language is not the most important thing. The most important thing is the effort you make to listen."

McGregor certainly made a point of listening when Unicef invited him and Boorman to visit some of its projects to help underprivileged kids in Kazakhstan, Mongolia and the Ukraine. The pair were left speechless after being introduced to 40 children at a government centre in the city of Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia.

"I didn't realise the children would be so young," says McGregor. "There were kids as young as two who had been living on the street. I was shocked and just didn't know what to say."

The thought that children the same age as his "wee Esther" were suffering because the government could not afford medical bills still haunts McGregor, and has clearly strengthened his resolve to highlight the incredible work done by Unicef.

"The Unicef projects became the heart and soul of the trip," says McGregor, who is now an ambassador for the organisation. "We learnt that because Unicef build fantastic facilities it might encourage people to abandon their children, thinking they might be better off at the centre. That's why Unicef are helping governments look at why children are abandoned in the first place. It was gobsmacking what they do."

After almost four months apart, McGregor and his wife were finally reunited in New York. As they sat down for breakfast together the actor became restless, thinking about plans to get his bike back to London.

In Long Way Round, the book that chronicles the journey, McGregor recalls Eve joking: "Alright, go and be with your bike instead of me."

And it looks like she might have to face up to being a motorcycle widow again sooner rather than later, since the actor, when attending The Times/Foyles Writers and Readers Forum to talk about the book and the work of Unicef, mentioned plans to travel through Africa next.

With his wife allowing him to go on these dream trips, would he, in turn, be happy for Eve to go off on a girls-only trip for couple of months?

"Yes, of course," comes the answer, after a long pause, as McGregor contemplates having to spend more time away from his wife. "At least I like to believe that I would be okay with it."