I’m a husband and have two beautiful children – that is much more important to me I no longer find happiness with strangers in pubs I get it at home with my wife and kids So that’s certainly the way my life’s changed. Fame is such a bore; I can’t be arsed with it.”He pauses, and reveals: “I was very relieved to get out of my twenties – I think that I’ve mellowed a lot I’m no longer 25 and tearing around. I focus less on all the trappings – the celebrity, the assistants and the make-up artists.”He would be the first to admit that at one time he enjoyed the frantic showbiz existence. “Before? Well, I was just trying to squeeze in far too many things.” Now, though, he feels that he has grown out of that frenetic, starry lifestyle “I’m not interested in being famous. I am very, very interested in being successful – there’s a big difference. He attributes this to having cut a lot of the frippery out of his life.”Acting feels more manageable these days,” he confirms “In the past, things were quite hectic for me.

But now I’m just concentrating on what’s in front of the camera. That’s why it feels so cosy in the cinema.”In Big Fish – as in Young Adam, last year’s acclaimed portrait of existential angst – McGregor seems a very relaxed presence on screen Acting appears to come naturally to him. We don’t want to tell mediocre stories – ‘Listen, something really average happened to me today…’” Cinemas, the actor reckons, are the campfires of today. “But instead of sitting in our parents’ lap, we sit in front of a big screen to hear the stories. “Being a Celt, I love the idea of poems and tunes being passed down through the generations. At the moment, I’m telling Clara stories about things that have happened in my life. Once she’s got past her bewilderment that I was ever a child, she’s fascinated by them.”We naturally embellish these stories – to the point where we come to see the embellishments as reality.

She loves them.”Like Edward in Big Fish, we all relish dramatising our own lives. “When you get home, the first thing you do is recount your stories of the day,” McGregor continues. That was a fascination with stories – and the reason why I’m an actor now It’s the same with Esther As soon as she gets up, all she wants is books. “If you go back to the beginning of time, people were telling stories around the campfire. As a kid, I used to love watching old black-and-white movies on BBC2 – I didn’t care what they were.