The clock ticks over to 8.30pm on a teeth-chattering Tuesday night. Ravenous and having just arrived home from a tediously long work day, the prospect of having to tackle an interview with one of Hollywood’s A-list actors is not exactly top of my “how I’d most like to spend my evening” list.

My phone rings right on schedule and I answer with a somewhat sardonic “yellow”, expecting to hear an agent, manager or celebrity go-between of some sort on the other end. Instead, I’m greeted with the distinct academic tones of the man himself.

“A-huh, that’s right: Ryan Phillippe personally dialled my cellphone number for a tête-à-tête… ’cause that’s how I roll” is the indulgent little thought that flits through my momentarily star-struck mind.

But as the professional in me takes hold, respect sets in for a big- name brand so (refreshingly) clearly devoid of airs and graces.

As the main headline act in the forthcoming film about the now legendary band of Star photographers who came to be known as The Bang Bang Club, I first met Phillippe when he and the rest of the cast were in Jozi shooting the movie of the same name.

It was evident then, as it still is two years on, that he was determined to do this quintessentially South African story justice.

To this end, Phillippe immersed himself in what he deems “the country with, in my opinion, the most complex and dramatic history in the world”. Now there’s a statement for the record books.

While he readily admits to knowing “very little” about the Bang Bang boys prior to signing on for the project (or the cult-like status assigned to Kevin Carter in particular, despite having seen both his and Greg Marinovich’s Pulitzer Prize-winning images), his research led to the “disturbing realisation of just how little the American education system told people about what was happening in South Africa at the time… I knew what apartheid was and how it came to be, but in terms of what was happening on the ground from the government side, in the townships, how different factions were being played up against each other… I was completely ignorant.”

Equally eye-opening was the dawning consciousness during filming of how “not a whole lot has changed in places like Thokoza…” even after (then) 15 years into democracy.

He recounts how, while re-enacting the uprising between IFP and ANC supporters (when Marinovich, whom Phillippe portrays in the film, was shot and Star Chief Photographer Ken Oosterbroek lost his life) it was evident many of the hostel dwellers believed there was another insurrection in the making.

For Marinovich, who joined Phillippe on set to offer him a few “authenticity” pointers, it was as though he, too, was reliving those traumatic events.

“It seemed to still be very raw for Greg. There were scenes where he was obviously emotionally overcome,” Phillippe reveals.

It’s a reaction Phillippe can well understand, even if only from a distance:

“Certainly for me personally, and especially as a father, it’s difficult to imagine witnessing that much tragedy and horror and it not affecting you, or not forming an emotional attachment.

“How do you just remain an observer with all that going on around you?”

Phillippe equates combat photographers to soldiers, elucidating that “these guys willingly put themselves in harm’s way and risk their lives. But the difference is soldiers are armed, they usually go in in groups and protect each other; combat photographers essentially go in alone, with no weapons.

“I watched a lot of documentaries on combat photographers and some liken them to kamikaze pilots. I can’t even comprehend it, but I deeply admire them. It’s an adrenalin-based behaviour that requires a certain kind of person.”

Or, as Marinovich was quoted as saying during an interview for the film’s screening at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year – in order to be a good combat photographer, you have to have a false sense of immortality, or you simply won’t get the job done.

On a lighter note, Phillippe has previously made mention of the fact that his first experience of South Africa (in 1995, when he was filming the Ridley Scott movie White Squall) was a very “dark and depressing one”. But upon returning 14 years later in 2009, he’s had a distinct change of heart:

“There’s such a vitality and sense of being free – how alive society seemed to be, especially in Joburg. I can tell you after leaving when filming wrapped, I have thought about South Africa almost every day since. It certainly got under my skin and undoubtedly has a place in my heart.”

Watch out ladies: you may just catch a glimpse of Phillippe’s ripped torso running through your sunny South African streets one of these days.

lThe Bang Bang Club opens in local cinemas on July 22.