"This?" he says, stroking it playfully.

"I'm a Viking now." He's been cast as the lead in The Last Battle Dreamer, which will be shooting in Ireland, Scotland and England in coming months. "I'm this guy who's Viking royalty and he falls in love with an English girl who convinces him to have the Vikings turn back. There's some great battle stuff early on but it's not about pillaging and destruction. It gets more into the politics of the time and the end of the Viking."

He got interested in Viking lore while filming battle scenes for Flags Of Our Fathers in Iceland. "They told me Icelandic women were beautiful because the Vikings would go to Ireland and take the most beautiful women when they left." He's intrigued to hear that a reconstructed Viking ship just sailed into Dublin from Denmark. "They're building our boats now. I have some of the weapons. The swords are just brutal, double-sided blades that would cut through a body like butter."

When he was married to Witherspoon he'd stay at home with their children, while she was filming, and she'd do the same when he had a film.

Since they parted last year . . . they still live near one another and have joint custody of the children . . . his career seems to have taken a leap forward.

It's the morning after his latest film Breach screened at Edinburgh Festival.

He has a movie lined up with Harrison Ford and another with Gus Van Sant.

He's also producing The Whalehunters ("about guys paid to lure billionaires into casinos").

Breach is based on the FBI intelligence agent Robert Hansen (Chris Cooper) who sold secrets to the Russians. Phillippe is the rookie agent Eric O'Neill who exposes him. "We're about the same age and from similar backgrounds, so we became buddies, hanging out, drinking beer and talking sports. He was a much more accessible real life person to play than Doc Bradley in the Eastwood movie. Both my grandfathers fought in World War II, so that was a big responsibility for me."

He'll next be seen as a Texan soldier in Iraq in Stop Loss, the second feature by Boys Don't Cry director Kimberley Pierce. "It's akin to The Deer Hunter. It's what happens when the guys come home, guys who signed up after 9/11 because they thought they were going over to get revenge, and then they get to Iraq and realise it has nothing to do with any of that. . . Kimberley is the first female director I've worked with, and the toughest . . . and that includes Ridley Scott, Robert Altman and Clint Eastwood."

Is America ready for Stop Loss?

"Things have changed drastically. How Bush got re-elected is beyond me and I think now it's beyond most of the country. The soldiers over in Iraq are mostly from the midwest and the south, places that would have put Bush in power. Now their parents see that their sons lives have been wasted, for nothing."