Long Way Round

I love success, I like being successful

because that's a mark of my work.

But I wasn't driven towards being famous.

And I'm glad that's the case 'cause you can be satisfied with success,

but I don't think you'll ever be satisfied with fame,

'cause you'll never really be famous enough, you know?

Please welcome Ewan McGregor.

I want to ask you about this. What's this world bike tour?

Now Jude Law was here, and he said you're gonna bike around the world?

Yeah. It's been a plan of mine for a long time,

and my best mate in London, Charley Boorman.

Uh, and we were planning a trip on motorcycles.

You know, we'd done a lot of biking together.

It's a tough life being somebody famous, isn't it?

-It must be so hard.

I first met Charley a few years ago on a movie called The Serpent's Kiss.

Dear sir, you have told me of your fondness for amateur dramatics.

But do please keep your performance within the bounds of credibility.

Uh, I am yours, accept it--

Get out and spy on someone else.

One in five films you'll-- you'll come out with someone

who you talk to afterwards. -Pick up a mate, yeah.

And one in ten you'll pick up a mate

that you'll spend the rest of your life with.

And Ewan was the one in ten.

Thank you for that.

For a long time we always talked about doing a-- doing a trip together.

Maybe to Spain or somewhere like that.

And then somehow Ewan then rang me up one night and said,

"Listen, Charley, I've got this idea. Instead of riding to Spain,

why don't we ride around the world?"

I just looked at the map, and the Bering Strait's a very narrow--

you know, that separates eastern Russia with America, with Alaska.

It didn't seem to be very far. -

And I thought, "Look, there's a straight line around the world there."

So, we're gonna ride from London to New York,

going east, the long way round.

A holiday doesn't have to be lying on a beach, you know?

It can be-- it can be exploration and adventure.

Of course, you want it to happen,

you want the adventure to take place and then there's an element of,

for me, of jealousy, of not being able to do something like this.

And then there's an element of sadness of, you know--

You know, it's like-- and happiness, it's like--

It's, like, all over. It's complex.

And it was just a huge adventure that sort of came up...

and it was there, so you can't really--

For us, we couldn't question it. It was there, it was a possibility,

and we sort of went with it, really.

The passion in my life is motorcycles. There's no...

You can't seem to get away from it either.

In all the years that I've been riding bikes, since I was six years old,

I've never not been able to not think about them.

It smells really nice too.

I started taking motorcycle trips at the end of movies,

and for me it was a way to get out on my own

and to gather back my own decision-making.

When you're flashing around on your bike, you know, with a helmet on,

you're just another geezer on the road.

If it weren't for motorcycles would you guys still be friends?

Probably not.

-No, we would be mates.

I think we... -Yeah.

We talk about other things sometimes. -Because when-- Sometimes.

We thought that we would video it to have a memory of it.

And then we thought, "Well, if we're gonna bother videoing it ourselves,

why don't we just get someone else to video it?"

The idea of filming it in the first place was to have a record of it, firstly.

So when we're sitting at 60 years old with our children,

we can have a bit of a giggle at ourselves going around the world.

I'd met a producer called Russ Malkin

who has done a lot of sports television.

And I told him about the project, and he seemed really interested.

Now you're really seeing it.

When Ewan and Charley first came round to see me about the project,

I thought they were totally mad

to take on such an epic adventure, but when I knew they were serious,

I was certainly up for the challenge.

I could see the, uh, big, global nature of the production,

so I thought of a producer friend of mine who lives in LA

whose name is David Alexanian.

Soon as I heard about it, I was immediately turned on.

Russ and I are old friends, we've known each other for about 15 years.

But it wasn't until I met with Ewan and Charley

and realized just how legitimate their passion for motorcycles was

that, uh, I figured I had to do it.

We've come down to Australia 'cause Ewan's working on Star Wars.

The four of us wanted to get together to see if we could work together.

But more importantly, we've come down to ride bikes

to see how that goes and try a little bit of camping.

Ewan and I both have absolutely no idea what to expect.

And I think that's really, um...

you know, there's always an element of fear.

Yeah, but isn't that one of those things where you have to confront your fears

and conquer them? -No. Not in this case.

But I'll be there with you.

I mean, it's not, "Let's go around the world and confront our deepest fears."

-What kind of trip is this?

We're not a-- It's not a Japanese television program.

Here we are. - We missed it.

We missed it.

Sorry.

Charley, there was loads of bikers on there and everything.

It was my fault.

You know, half the journey's about Ewan and I

going around on bikes around the world.

And the other half is about meeting people along the way.

Listen, how, um-- how long have you been doing this?

Uh, about 12 years. Yeah. -12 years?

You do this for 12 hours a day? 12 hours a day?

12 hours a day.

Can you imagine doing this 12 hours a day?

Mind you, can you imagine sitting on a motorcycle for 12 hours a day

for three-- for three months? -

Some people might think we're the fucking ones who are nuts.

Snakes.

Snake pit.

I've got to get used to this camping out in the wild.

-

Ewan and I have a great relationship, and that seems to be working well.

I reckon it's a real strong possibility that this is gonna work.

We did enough miles, I think, today. It was quite hard going there.

'Cause, uh...

my bum got a bit sore.

There were no bears, thank God. Lots of snakes though.

You know? -Yeah.

That's why people join the army.

It's not to see the world, and it's not to kill people,

it's just so they don't have to have a bath for a week.

I'm not all that experienced off-road on a bike.

So I'm kind of nervous about it

'cause I know that Charley did an awful lot of, um, motocross

when he was a kid, which I never did.

And it's that terrible anxiety that you get in your stomach

when you're doing something with someone who can do it better than you, you know?

Do you have a side? - Yeah. I sleep on the right.

Maybe we should change it round

so that we don't feel like we're in bed with our wives,

'cause you don't know what might happen. -

Sleep well, Charley.

"Those aren't pillows."

It's been fantastic to kind of get cracking with Charley who makes me laugh.

He's my best mate.

There's no question that at some point we're bound to--

I'll get on his nerves, or vice versa.

But I think what's important is how you deal with that, you know what I mean?

I think maybe we should have two tents,

and, you know, some nights we sleep together

and other nights we don't.

Ewan and I have been talking about it, and we ring each other up

and stuff like that, and some days we're really, you know,

like, "Oh, let's get going."

And then other days it's like I'm thinking,

"Oh, God, do I really want to do it?"

Now that we're back from Australia and everything went really well there,

we've got to find some office space, build a workshop and get it started.

There's gonna be a bike here and a bike here.

And then we'll probably have nothing here, just maybe some tools.

Maybe a Snap-on toolbox, I don't know.

And then here we're gonna have really big shelves, really wide ones,

coming out to about here.

So that all the camping equipment, tents

and anything sort of big and bulky can all go here.

Helmets and stuff for our daily use.

All a bit anal, but anyway, it's exciting.

My mother always told me never to be caught with dirty drawers.

So here I am cleaning my drawers.

You know, I remember walking into that room and it was just a shell.

And now it is the center of this obsession which is this world trip.

Got a lot here to do.

What are we doing now? We're just wandering around cleaning.

Should we let the door down so then that's done?

Yeah, let's do that. Yeah. -

I-- Seriously. I crunch it up, you can crunch it down.

That it? -No, more-- That's it.

That was good, wasn't it?

Should we put it up again?

For me this is all-- this is a huge part of the trip as well.

This preparation is like...

like in Boy's Own stuff, isn't it, you know?

Down in the workshop with Charley, fucking around.

This is what our camp is gonna be like.

I'm not having any fucking messy shit.

- Oops. Sorry.

I-- I want you to know that-- that Ewan did this.

This is a bit what I'm like.

It's a bit frightening,

but it gives me so much pleasure to have that all like that.

A lot of us spend our lives running away from who we really are, okay?

And here it is. - I'm an office boy, clearly.

We want to film this, but we don't want to be surrounded

by loads of cameramen.

So we're just trying to figure out the best way to do it.