One might have thought that Ewan McGregor would have had enough of Jedi mind tricks taking on the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi in the much-derided Star Wars prequels. And yet in The Men Who Stare at Goats, the actor from Perth, Scotland, again finds himself playing a role in which beings can reach a higher plane by using the power of their minds. McGregor plays the Michigan-based journalist, Bob Wilton, who hears about a military operation that aims to train soldiers to use their dormant psychic powers, and embarks on an odyssey to Iraq in the company of wacky soldiers played by George Clooney and Jeff Bridges in Grant Heslov’s comedy based on the factual writing of Jon Ronson.

So, did McGregor get cast because of his previous Jedi-knight experience, or just because the 38-year-old actor is one of the world’s most recognisable stars?

“I was interested to speak to Grant about that myself when we first met, because I wondered if that was why they wanted me to do it,” he muses. “I didn’t know if it was an in joke but he claimed that he’d not even thought about it, that he didn’t make the connection. I don’t know if that is true or not, but there we are. I think it’s good fun to play those lines.”

Speaking of déjà-vu, McGregor is making a habit of playing journalists. “A journalist gets to ask a lot of questions and gets a lot of answers, and it leads the audience into the stories,” he says. “So there is an advantage to being in the role. This is at least the third journalist I’ve played – this one, the guy in Down with Love and the character in Shallow Grave.”

Goats also offers the second comedy performance from the actor this year. However, McGregor admits that comedy does not come easy to him. “In this film I didn’t find it so much of a jump to do comedy because there is a finer line with it. Much of it comes out of the situation and the acting is quite realist as a result,” he says. “I did a film earlier this year, called I Love You Philip Morris, with Jim Carrey and in that the gags were more evident. It’s partly Jim’s style. He’s a comedian, the moments of comedy are more pronounced and I felt obliged to try and play those moments, but it didn’t suit me. It didn’t suit my acting to try and make something funny. I quickly learnt that I can only play it as real, and if it’s funny, it’s funny, and if it’s not, it’s not. If I try to make the joke work then it’s not funny. I don’t know why.”

Funnily enough, the director questioned whether McGregor wanted to play Bob Wilton because he was the straight man of the piece. “I didn’t know that I wanted to play the straight-man role. Jeff Bridges, Kevin Spacey and George Clooney’s characters are big and colourful, but once I chatted to Grant about it, he said that was never the way that he saw it and that the character has some colour about him.”

Indeed, the movie is told from Bob’s point of view. The actor talks in such a broad Scottish accent that it always seems amazing that he can cover it up when, as he often does, he is playing an American.

A technique often used by actors is to speak with the accent of the character throughout the shoot, whether the camera is rolling or not, but McGregor says that’s not his style: “I don’t. I probably should, a lot of actors stay in the accent all day and it’s a much better way of doing things because you don’t have to go in and out, I don’t do that because I think it’s too embarrassing.”

Despite his role in the film, the Trainspotting star remains sceptical as to whether there is some untapped power of the human mind. “I don’t know,” he says. “My cynical side thinks that we’ve been around on Earth for a long time as people and if we have all these powers, surely we would have discovered how to enhance them by now. But, then again, things can happen when you feel like you knew it was going to happen. You think about someone that you haven’t thought of for years and then they turn up that day, or you meet them the next day. There are coincidences that happen that feel slightly unworldly and that make you think that maybe there is something to it. I don’t know about running through walls and things, though. I think that is maybe pushing it a little too far.”

Ewan McGregor's next films are surrounded by controversy. There's Roman Polanski's unfinished film "The Ghost," a thinly veiled indictment of Tony Blair. The satirical "The Men Who Stare at Goats," also featuring George Clooney and Jeff Bridges, alleges that the U.S. military engaged in "psychic spying" against the Russians. And in "I Love You, Phillip Morris," out in February, McGregor plays tonsil hockey -- and then some -- with Jim Carrey. But first, he'll star as the young All-American Gene Vidal (father of Gore) in "Amelia," director Mira Nair's Amelia Earhart biopic.

You play Earhart's lover-on-the-side in "Amelia," but the part itself is fairly straightforward. What was the draw?

Hilary Swank, who plays Amelia, has been a good friend of mine for years, and we've always talked about working together. I suppose we kind of kept our eyes open for something. She called me about "Amelia" just as I arrived to start shooting "I Love You, Phillip Morris," and we struggled for quite some time, but I really wanted to make it work dates-wise. So I literally made the two films at the same time, flying back and forth from Toronto.

How did it go?

Oh, my gosh, I was just happy to be working with her because I think she's such an amazing actress.

What was it like working with Polanski?

He pushes you quite hard and always demands that you look for the truth of the scene and pushes until you get there, until you stop acting it and you start feeling it. But he's also got quite a brusque manner, so you have to have a thick skin.

That said, I'm very fond of him. He's one of the very few completely brilliant directors that I've worked with. There aren't really very many, I have to say, or it's a shame to say. To be an artist in terms of what you see and what you want to feel out of each scene, a kind of master of the technique and the technicalities of filmmaking, and a master of directing actors, which is usually the one that's missing -- there are many who have no idea how to speak or to pull good work out of actors -- is very rare. Roman was all those things.

Have you been following the news coverage of what's been happening to him?

No, I try not to. I was pretty upset. I don't like to think of him sitting in a prison cell. But I wouldn't comment upon it because it's a very complicated issue, you know? It seems odd. He's been living in Switzerland for years and I've visited him there, so this is all very strange.

How much of what goes on in "The Men Who Stare at Goats" do you think is true? The LSD, the telekinesis, the military secrecy . . .

Most of it's true! In fact, the most unbelievable parts of the film are the true ones. The mundane bits are the bits we made up. The journalist in Iraq -- my story, the character I play -- is an invention. But there was a rumor that the Russian psychics were bombarding the U.S. president with negative energy, and there was a group within the military trying to combat it. It's crazy, but war is crazy.

For the actors, it certainly looked like a good time.

My first scene with Jeff Bridges we were supposed to be tripping on acid. We had these amazing contact lenses that made it look like our pupils were wide open and we were waiting in this room that just so happened to have this old electric piano in it and I remember Jeff got so excited. He was like, "Oh, man! They put this keyboard here so we can get into it!" And so he started playing these wild, trippy sound effects on this keyboard. Us in our big black eyes, the Dude on keyboard, I just thought, "It doesn't get much better than this."

Do you still get recognized for ' Star Wars'?

It depends on where I am. At home in Scotland it's always for "Trainspotting," but more often than not, I'm stopped in the street for the two motorcycle reality shows I did [titled "Long Way Round" in the U.S.]. Television really is more immediate, isn't it? It was very successful here in Britain, so I get complimented for my bike riding more than my film work, which I'm not sure is a good thing.

Is there anyone you really want to work with?

Yeah, I've never worked with Johnny Depp, and I'd really love to. Kate Winslet. Rebecca Hall. Directors, I don't know. I'm odd with directors because I don't have a kind of wish list. Daniel Day-Lewis? I don't know. I think I'd like to work with him.

You think?

Daniel Day-Lewis has made me want to give up acting a lot. Whenever I watch him, I think, "What's the point? There's no point in carrying on. That's it." I remember watching "In the Name of the Father" and coming out of the cinema and burning my equity card and going "I'm finished." There's no way I can ever be that good, and it's so depressing. I feel like I'm talking myself out of it again . . .

Do you think America is ready for "I Love You, Phillip Morris," which is based on the true story of a man who falls in love while in prison and then stages multiple successful escapes to be with his lover after his release?

It seemed to go down very well there at Sundance. It's a love story, an escape movie and a comedy, all about this man who goes to incredible lengths to be with the man he loves. I like it because it's a gay film, which is to say it's a film about two men in love, and I think that's an important element of it. But it's not a film about them being gay. They just happen to be gay. I also got to French kiss Jim Carrey a lot, and I quite like that too.

If Betty Ford treated wanderlust, actor Ewan McGregor would be the first admitted. The 38-year-old gets his travel fix by working on multiple movies (coming up: Amelia, The Men Who Stare at Goats), then taking off for extended motorcycle tours across Africa and around the globe. For our annual travel issue, we asked the actor to share his hard-won wisdom. All of it, by the way, applicable to non-movie stars.

I’d never considered traveling to out-of-the-way spots before I visited Churchill, Canada, to make a documentary about polar bears. Then I was hooked.

Pack Light

I’m always on the road, and most of the time the only thing I can’t do without is a laptop. Some other necessary items: warm sleeping bag, tent, GPS—that’s it for a good trip.

Get Skilled

I don’t have my pilot’s license yet because I haven’t had time, but I got to fly in a P-51 Mustang for Amelia. Flying over Africa, that would be a dream. I also haven’t done any real sea adventuring—I need to get to the Poles.

Leave Things to Chance

When I went from London to NYC, heading east by bike, we took a map, drew a line, and left it up to luck. We couldn’t have planned any better.

Take it Slow

One of my bugbears is rushing too much. On a bike trip across Africa there were churches in Ethiopia that were right off the road—but still difficult to get to—and we just didn’t have time. It leaves you something to go back to, I guess. Plus, Ethiopia was one of my favorite African countries.

Be not afraid

There’s a lot of fear and misinformation passed on for no reason about unsafe travel, especially about Africa. I’ve taken my young kids to the African plains and met such overwhelmingly helpful and genuine people. If you always heeded the fears of others, you’d never end up doing anything different.