We did a lot of that in drama school: intellectualising and maybe justifying your position. ‘I am a thinking actor and I have thought this through’ – well, just do it. I much prefer the doing aspect.
As an audience member, those studio films are fun. I like an adventure tale, and I also like to go see something that has more of a social pulse. I like to keep learning and trying new things. And if the scripts are good, it doesn’t really matter.
Why does a three-year-old, and it’s usually boys, want to drive the tractor or have machinery and be in control of it? I don’t know. Why wouldn’t you ask to boil a kettle or something? Maybe you would, I dunno.
We moved to Ireland when I was two and we settled in Killarney, Co Kerry. Where we were living in Germany is very industrial and very grey and my parents wanted to have countryside around for my sister and I to grow up in.
Even if I’m playing a superhero, it has to be steeped in reality.
The arts are very alive in Ireland, so that had its influence on me. But I consider myself European, really.
People are complicated. Our behavior towards one another is strange. So I like opportunities to investigate that.
I always approach film as a fan.
Everything I put my name to and take part in, I want to be good. That’s not saying it will always happen. But I want to make bold choices.
Nobody wants to hear Metallica at lunchtime.
There’s no point in swanning through and being cool as a breeze in every scene. It’s not really that interesting. Even if you’re a superhero.
I don’t think peroxide-blond hair is a beneficial look for me.
I came to Los Angeles and did auditions for television. I made a terrible mess of most of them and I was quite intimidated. I felt very embarrassed and went back to London. I got British television jobs intermittently between the ages of 23 and 27, but it was very patchy.
I’ve always been more inclined to go out to work than carry on with academic studies.
It’s more interesting isn’t it, if I’ve got a hedonistic dark side?
I’m fairly competitive.
If you’re dealing with a character that actually exists, there’s an awful lot of information there. So, you can put together, from the information, motivations, insecurities, reactions. Where does that seed get born, if you like? What I do is put that together.
Nowadays, especially in big commercial films it’s much easier for the audience, and they tend to get spoonfed. It’s much more interesting to me, people leave the theater and they start asking themselves questions and find their own moral compass about what these characters have been doing.
I think that idea of alienation, for whatever reason, is still very prevalent within our society and a lot of people deal with it – most people deal with it at some point in their life unless they’re sort of the golden child. I think that’s something that we all need to address.
When I go the cinema, unfortunately nowadays, especially with the big commercial films, the audience is spoon-fed through the entire experience and they don’t have to do any work.
Being movie director you’ve got the art department, you’ve got the actors, you’ve got the camera department, you’ve got make-up and hair, and props. You’ve got your finger in all these pies, and you’re making sure that everything cooks at the right temperature.