To escape the shackles of the biker-unfriendly studio bosses, last year the latest Obi Wan Kenobi decided to jettison his light sabre, pick up a BMW R 1150 GS Adventure and attempt the most challenging motorised adventure undertaken by a Hollywood star since Steve McQueen and Paul Newman raced at Le Mans - going from London to New York over land. Relentless 14-hour marathons riding the equivalent of London to Edinburgh off-road pummelled their bodies, but it strengthened their characters. They camped out most nights, cooking by campfire, their bikes resting nearby like cowboys' mustangs.
"Unbelievable," says Ewan of the BMWs. "We only had two problems with them. One with the brake system on [our cameraman's] bike which was simple to fix but it meant that we had to put his bike on a truck. So we bought a little Russian two-stroke, a 250, and he rode that for about 800 miles to Ulan Bator in Mongolia. BMW sent a guy out and he fixed it in minutes! The other little problem was with the rear frame that holds the seat and the luggage racks. It had some fractures, but that was purely because we were carrying too much stuff."
Only one modification was made to the bikes, and only to Ewan's. And not out of choice.
"I got rear-ended in Calgary," blurts McGregor, who was hit by a teenage driver whilst braking for road works on an Alberta Interstate. The car was a near write-off. All that was wrong with Ewan's bike was that the pannier boxes had been shunted slightly forward. McGregor knows that it could have been much worse. "If he'd hit my back wheel I would have gone down and he would have been over the top of me, there's no question."
No wonder the film companies are nervous whenever McGregor gets on a bike. But don't blame the Scotsman. Blame that girl in Crieff...
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