Ewan McGregor talks about The Men Who Stare At Goats

Jon Ronson is a great journalist who has written some great books. Them: Adventures with Extremists is one of my faves.

One of his other books, The Men Who Stare At Goats, is getting turned into a film starring George Clooney and Ewan McGregor. I posted a photo of Clooney in the film a while back and the one above is also from the film.

In 1979 a secret unit was established by the most gifted minds within the US Army. Defying all known accepted military practice - and indeed, the laws of physics - they believed that a soldier could adopt the cloak of invisibility, pass cleanly through walls and, perhaps most chillingly, kill goats just by staring at them. Entrusted with defending America from all known adversaries, they were the First Earth Battalion. And they really weren't joking. What's more, they're back and fighting the War on Terror. 'The men who stare at goats' reveals extraordinary - and very nutty - national secrets at the core of George W Bush's War on Terror

Dark Horizons have a great interview with Ewan McGregor. He chats about his work on Angels & Demons, then moves on to saying an awful lot about his character in the Goats film.

I play a journalist, at the beginning of the film whose wife, who’s also a journalist in this small newspaper in Ann Arbor – The Ann Arbor Daily Telegram—cheats on him with her one-armed editor, Dave. And I see her flirting with him. But then she comes clean, and she’s going to leave me for this one-armed man, Dave.

I, in my misery, take myself to Iraq. It’s the beginning of the Iraq War. And I go to become embedded, but all I do is end up in a swanky hotel in Kuwait, and can’t get into Iraq. I’m not embedded with any troops, so I’m stuck in this four-star hotel, having wanted to prove my manhood by going to war, you know? Where I meet George Clooney’s character, and we embark on a kind of road trip through Iraq, looking for his buddies in this strange and secret section of the American Army.

It’s a very funny film, and I had such a lovely time working with George, and with Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey. And it was the four of us, and it was just hilarious. It was great fun...We filmed it in – we filmed a lot of it in Puerto Rico. [LAUGHTER] Because it looks so much like Iraq..."

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First photo of George Clooney in Men Who Stare At Goats

Here is a first look at George Clooney in uniform shooting a film called Men Who Stare at Goats. In it, Clooney plays a soldier who claims to be part of the Army's First Earth Battalion, a unit that employs paranormal powers in their missions.

It is currently filming in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The film is being directed by actor-turned-filmmaker Grant Heslov. In addition to Clooney, the extensive cast features Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Spacey, and Stephen Lang.

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Men Who Stare at Goats - George Clooney developing movie based on Jon Ronson book.

George Clooney has started putting a cast together for Men Who Stare At Goats. It's based on the details uncovered by Jon Ronson (author of the same titled book, along with the excellent Them: Adventures with Extremists).

According to HR he’s got Kevin Spacey, Ewan McGregor, and Jeff Bridges in negotiations to be tethered to it. It’s based on a book about an army unit with paranormal powers.

The title refers to the idea that they can kill a goat simply by staring at it. McGregor will play a reporter named Bob Wilton who stumbles onto the secret when he meets a man (Clooney) who claims to be a psychic soldier.

Bridges will play Clooney’s mentor and the founder of the psychic program, while Spacey will play a former psychic soldier now running a prison camp in Iraq. A great idea and what appears to be a great cast.

Try and catch the documentary Crazy Rulers of the World which featured the episode about the Men who Stare at Goats. Chisholm's friend, The Russian, will dig it.

The three-part series begins with The Men Who Stare at Goats, which charts the history of a secret US Army unit founded in 1979 - the First Earth Battalion.

The programme uncovers the startling truth about this unit's involvement with paranormal activities that defy all known accepted military practice, including mind reading, out of body experiences and 'thought-death' experiments carried out on goats at Fort Bragg.

In programme two, Jon Ronson reveals how the New Age movement of the 1980s has influenced interrogation at Guantanamo Bay and in post-war Iraq.

The final episode looks into the military's involvement with remote viewing and mind control experiments.

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