I am never going to please all 100 million people who read the book. I'll be lucky if half that number are happy with me playing Christian Grey. I know there are campaigns of hate against me already.

I’d been auditioning for parts for years, I never got any better at it. I’m crap at auditions.

Because I used to play a lot of sport, I've always been in decent enough shape. When I used to get asked to do a bit of body work before a photo shoot I'd lie and say, 'Yeah, I'm going to the gym.' I literally never did anything.

It's not like I cleaned up with girls. I always looked young and I was very small; I hated being 'cute.'

I was and still am a massive fan of [Murphy] Cillian's work - always have been. Obviously he's a great deal older than me, so I've sort of grew up watching Cillian's work. But I'm very much a fan.

It's funny when you know you're playing two characters and you're aware of how you have to play each one into your performance of the other. You're constantly at the back of your mind thinking and it all gets a bit confusing.

Essentially I feel like all of that pressure when you're making the first of a franchise of [movies based on] books that mean so much to people that has so much attention on it, it can be quite paralyzing I think. I think a lot of that creeped in the first time around and it maybe affects the work.