Features

On the windswept south side of Jonathan Palmer's Bedford Autodrome, Clive Owen is pounding around in a track-tough Jaguar XKR. This particular circuit has some complex corners and a high-speed fourth-gear number, during which the driver's cojones - not to mention the Jag's tyres - are severely tested. But it seems that Clive is not in the mood to back off.

"On a group day," one of the instructors tells me, "a 1min 9sec lap would win the event. He's doing 1min 10s right now. Clive clearly doesn't have issues with speed. Or commitment." Or, for that matter, changing gear. It's a metaphor he himself has used to describe the twists and turns his career has taken on the road to his current, undeniable status as a leading man.

Five minutes in his company is all it takes to establish that this is an unusually grounded Hollywood player. The tan is not easy to come by in the British Isles, but the attitude is definitely closer to Coventry than California.

And no wonder. His success has been hard-won. Like Michael Caine before him, his is a tough, working-class background. His father abandoned his mother, him and his brothers, when he was just three. He was educated at a Coventry comprehensive and spent two years on the dole before being accepted at RADA. The breakthrough, in Mike Hodges' The Croupier, only came after American critics picked up on a film roundly ignored on its initial release.

Fair to say that he hasn't looked back since. The Bourne Identity, Closer, Sin City, Inside Man and Children of Men have all followed. This month, he is starring in the new action adventure film Shoot 'Em Up. In it, he plays the mysterious Mr Smith, entrusted with protecting a new-born baby from an army of assassins.

It's a full-tilt action movie, "beyond tongue-in-cheek", according to the man who stars in it. Amongst innumerable eye-popping highlights, Shoot 'Em Up features a shoot-out during a sex scene and an astonishingly OTT car chase.

And Clive Owen loves his car chases. Back in 2001, BMW made a series of five short films called The Hire, part of a pioneering 'viral' internet campaign. Overseen by directorial talents as varied as Ang Lee, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Guy Ritchie and the late, great John Frankenheimer, Owen was the constant, brooding presence. Not only does he know how to look like he can drive, he actually can drive.

He can take a joke too. Despite stocking a wide variety of lids, the Palmer people struggle to find a crash helmet large enough to fit his head. Eventually, an XXL one is located. "Oh, here we go," he laughs, "I can see the headline now. Though I should point out that I do actually have an unusually large head."

When you're looking at a script, do you find yourself flicking through to see if there's a decent car chase sequence?

It's great fun doing stuff like that. Shoot 'Em Up has some wild action in it. In one sequence, I drive into a vanload of baddies who are hanging out of every window shooting at me, I shoot out my windscreen, shoot out theirs, the vehicles collide, I go through my windscreen, through theirs, hit the back of the van, then shoot them all dead. Ridiculous! (Pause) A car chase in a movie is like any other aspect of acting, it's like having dialogue.