Hollywood's Most Wanted

Wanted certainly marks a change of pace from Atonement?

It’s an incredible change of pace, style and everything for me, but I think that was really why I did it. It’s not the only reason: when I'm looking for something to do, I ask is it different, is it challenging, does it make me employ a new acting style, or is it in a new genre? This satisfied all those things. But I wasn’t certain it wasn’t going to be just another action movie, straight to DVD, but then I looked at Timur’s previous work and thought this is definitely going to be different and it made me very excited to do it. Lots of actors are versatile but not every actor gets a chance to show their versatility and I've been very lucky that I've been allowed to be versatile so hopefully that will continue. But if all I get offered is the same thing over and over again then I'll do that over and over again.

How much physical preparation was involved in the role?

I didn’t really know what I was letting myself in for. I never go to the gym so to have a reason to have to do it is quite exciting and to have someone forcing you to do it is quite advantageous. So six weeks before we started it was great, loving it, four weeks into filming, great, loving it. But by about the fifth week in, I'm doing stunts for 12 hours a day and then going to the gym and I'm thinking, you know what, you can stick this. But my trainer is brilliant and he would force me every day. And I'm glad he did because I wouldn’t have gotten to do the film if he hadn’t. But I also had a very good stunt double who made me look far better than I ever could.

Co-star Angelina Jolie is something of an action movie veteran. Was she a lot of help?

She was great. I got lots of tips for doing the action, but she didn’t take herself too seriously and said that if you can’t have fun when you’re making an action movie then you shouldn’t be doing it. We were shooting the scene where we’re running along the train, and I've to go over the bridge and she’s going under it. I'm on a big wire and I had to smash through a fence which was becoming quite painful. Her advice was to just shut up and enjoy it.

Is there a certain sting to your male pride when you’re being beaten up by Angelina?

Oh, totally. In that scene, it wasn’t in the script for my character to throw a punch. But in the film he says “I'm going to kick your fucking ass,” and swings for her. That was completely added because I felt undermined as a man and thought I should try. I failed to land the punch and she beats me up even more. In fight scenes you swing punches and you take punches. Swinging punches is fun, but for some reason, the best part of a fight scene is taking a hit and making it look good. I get a lot of satisfaction out of that.

How about working with Timur?

I didn’t know exactly what was going to happen. I knew from watching Night Watch and Day Watch that I was very excited and that if Timur in any way made this film look like them then it was always going to be something more than your average action movie. Also the fact that it’s so clearly not for all the family as well is something that I've not seen for a little while. I appreciated that because there aren’t many action or superhero movies that cater for just adults.

What was the collaborative process like with Mark Millar?

I didn’t meet Mark until we were halfway through filming so the collaborative process for me was limited. I wish I had worked with him more because we had quite a good laugh. But we worked on adapting the graphic novel by trying to get that sense of apathy and post-modern depression where he’s got no reason really to be so unhappy. He’s got a decent enough background but then I suppose his best friend is banging his girlfriend, and that was all in it, but then the graphic novel goes in such a different direction.

Did you notice any similarities between the character and yourself?

I didn’t notice too much in common between myself and the character, other than I've been unhappy at times in my life which we all have. But I think this guy suffers from it constantly – he’s properly clinically depressed, which I've never been. It’s not until his life is threatened that he realises how important life is to him and I realise how important my life is to me. So there aren’t too many similarities, but I think he represents this part of society that’s like you or I – this guy, in his 20s or 30s, he’s got a house, he’s got a girlfriend; life is fine but he just can’t bring himself to smile. So that’s a really interesting basis on which to build a hero or an antihero or whatever you want to call it.

What about the film’s philosophy of killing one to save a thousand?

I don’t know if I necessarily agree with that, I don’t know if I could ever bring myself to kill one to save a million. It’s weird, you make really serious films and you get asked really daft questions, then you make a daft entertaining film and you get asked a really deep probing question about the inner workings of my very soul.

Is there a feeling of being a small cog in a big wheel when you’re making a film on such a scale?

That’s the filming experience. It’s probably a little bigger when you’re making an action film but I'm very used to feeling like that small cog. You have brief concentrated moments where you become a very important cog between the times when they say action and cut, but other than that you are like a cog. That’s just film for you. But when I did Last King of Scotland, I had a completely different film in my head from the one I saw and there wasn’t a special effect in it, and that’s testament to the skills and artistic abilities of people like camera operators and photographers and they foxed me as much as any CGI.