(... not at the beginning of interview)

Jay Leno: ...England they have those cameras that catch you and can see you? Does Scotland have those?

Ewan McGregor: No, not where I was riding.

JL: Oh, that was perfect.

EM: Yeah, that was, it was nice. I was advocating speeding the last time I was on, wasn’t I? Not that that’s what we were doing. I was riding up in the Highlands, and there are stretches of road up there which are unbelievable. On a bike--

JL: Were the roads, deserted or curvy or what?

EM: Curvy, windy, up and down, fast roads...really beautiful.

JL: So what kind of speed - no one will be watching in Scotland - what kind of speed can you get to up there?

EM: I was doing a film and the producers had organized this new Italian motorcycle for me, an MV Augusta. The producer of the movie organized it for me on my day off...I caught myself doing about 135 miles an hour alongside this lake. I was filming the next day and I thought, “what does he think he’s doing?” giving me this bike...

JL: Check that insurance policy...

EM: Yeah.

JL: Now what was the film you mentioned?

EM: Young Adam.

JL: Yeah, now what was that?

EM: It’s a small film; it was a book that was written in the 50s by a Beat writer Alexander Trotke (?). It charts... it’s very dark and incredibly erotic. And it kind of charts the moral decline of this guy through four sexual relationships, through the film.

JL: So, it’s...

EM: It’s filthy.

[crowd cheers]

JL: Filthy, huh. Now, will that open here? I mean, or is it....do I have to put quarters in to see this? Or will we...

EM: I hope so. It’s an incredibly brave piece of work. A beautiful film. It’ll have a high rating, I’m sure.

JL: You’re a wee bit naked in the movie.

EM: Very often without my clothes.

JL: I mean are you used...you did stage work. Is that the first time..?

EM: Well no. I mean, I’ve done a lot of stuff without my [kit?] off. I did a film The Pillow Book, with [greenaway?] and I had sex with everyone in that. On stage...

I had sex with a 65-year-old Japanese man in that movie. And it was very nice. Hahahah But I was on the stage and I went back on stage after a couple years doing a play in Salisbury....it’s a very kind of traditional, English, countryside area, very tweedy. They were lots of tweed down there. I did this play called What the Butler Saw, by Jo Aughten, and in the play I appear naked two or three times, I was playing a page boy and at one point I was with a policeman and he had already taken his clothes off so I had to appear from behind a couch ...with this policeman’s helmet over my genitals. And jump up and run off stage. But it was too much fun not to cover myself up with the helmet ... because they were really ...especially on a Saturday matinee...they’re very old and powdery ladies, you know. And ah, fantastic... So I spring up and there would be this noise: “Oh!”, like that. But like lots of old ladies going “Oh!”, and it was fantastic. But one night, one night, now on a stage there are vases of flowers and thing like that. Now you’d imagine you wouldn’t need to put water in them, right. But someone in stage help, or in the props department, or whatever, filled the vase up with water, which would be knocked over before I did my jump up and streak. SO I jumped up without my helmet, got the “Oh!”, and I went “Aaah!”. I started running, I’m naked, completely naked, and I’m on stage running that way and I hit the water and went umph like that. I landed on my back, and my arsehole is wielding it’s way-- [laughter] The people in the front row just saw my bum going like that... towards them. And anyway I managed to get off stage.

There’s something very powerful about being-first of all, you’re not arrested for it. If you’re naked in front of this many people you’d be arrested. Well, you wouldn’t be--

JL: Yeah, right normally. I would be, but there would be insufficient evident.

EM: Well, I just kinda like it. It’s good.

JL: You told me something last time you were here. You mentioned your uncle was in Star Wars...the original one.

EM: Yeah, yeah. It turned out that way. He was in the first three, he played a part called Wedge. I remember, I must have been seven, and my brother and I, who’s two years older, were waiting outside the school for our parents to pick up to take us to see Star Wars for the first time. And it was hugely exciting because it was the first film I’d seen him in on the big screen, and um, and then it was Star Wars as well, which blew me away. But he was in it, and I think they revoiced him in the first one....

JL: Well, we have a clip, here’s your uncle let's see...

[show clip]

JL: Is that his voice?

EM: Yeah, that is his voice. I think when he approaches the Death Star, he goes, “Look at the size of that thing!” and it doesn’t sound very like him at all.

JL: You must have been the coolest guy in school

EM: Yeah it was very cool to have him...yeah yeah. And when I was getting closer to being cast as Obi Wan, cause I thought about it for a very ling time, cuz it was a huge, huge film and I didn’t know, it wasn’t quite the thing that I’d been doing. But the nearer I got, the more I wanted to do the part. And I asked his advice and he said don’t, don’t do it. He said don’t do it. And I said, well I really think I want to do it. He went don’t do it. I asked him why and he said “Well, I want you to have a career after you’re thirty” was his advice. Uncle Denis, that was terrible. But here we are, still working now.

JL:Yeah, you’re still working, you got one more to go. Now this is Episode 2 Attack of the Clones. I thought it was terrific, I really enjoyed it, the story, the romance thing, and of course the special effects are amazing... Tell people

EM: Well, it’s incredible... In episode one the phantom menace, I think we’ve laid down the groundwork for six movies. We had to set up all what the Jedi order was like, what the Senate was like. You know, there were a lot of things that had been talked about in the original three films that we had to go back and kinda set up. So that being said, and that having been done, we really, uh, kick it off in this second one. It feels much more reminiscent, to me, of the original three, like in ah, Empire Strikes Back or something like that. And it’s great.

JL: What’s happening in this scene we’re going to see now? Do you know what scene is? [screen comes up] Oh, yeah, this’ll tell you a lot.

EM: This is the scene where I open that door. Like that [makes Jedi gesture]. I think I have a big fight in the rain with um, in the original three - Boba Fett - he’s a kid in this film, so I have a fight with his father. And it goes something like this.

[shows clip]

EM: Hahahahha

JL: Now you’re in town for a while. What are you doing, are you doing a film while here?

EM: Yeah, I did a film, Down With Love, which is with Renee Zellweger. It’s based on the Rock Hudson and Doris Day sex comedies of the 60s and we’re making it as if it’s in the 60s, so it’s all in the studios, and then exteriors are in the back lot, and cars are all back production and stuff. And it’s very, very funny and a good script.

[end interview stuff]