The Men Who Stare At Goats - interview

British producer Paul Lister noted early on the movie potential for the non-fiction exposé The Men Who Stare at Goats. The book was penned by Welsh journalist Jon Ronson recounting his experiences with a US military unit in Iraq who specialise in paranormal methods of warfare. It was the kind of stuff you couldn't make up, but it did need shaping for the movie screen. Lister called on scriptwriter Peter Straughn who has balanced comedy and real-life drama before in films like Mrs Ratcliffe's Revolution and How To Lose Friends and Alienate People. The script then fell into the hands of Hollywood filmmakers George Clooney and Grant Heslov.

Clooney and Heslov went all the way to the Oscars with their previous collaboration Good Night, and Good Luck (2006), which they co-wrote, but The Men Who Stare At Goats (which is directed by Heslov) is nowhere near as sedate as that film. That said, there are moments of chemical sedation with Clooney playing a wild-eyed soldier schooled by a hippy 'warrior monk' (channelled by Jeff Bridges). Ewan McGregor is the straight man - a journalist based on Jon Ronson - who buddies up with Clooney on a mission that takes them across the Iraqi desert. Along the way, they also encounter Kevin Spacey as a rogue member of the New Earth Army.

It's not often you'll see a screwball comedy set in a theatre of war, but Heslov tells us why he was confident it would work and why the 'special relationship' between Britain and America isn't just a force for destruction.

Interview by Stella Papamichael