I have so many boxing gloves around my house that I would get them confused with other gloves.

I started to shortcircuit because I had high aspirations for the film. I never told anybody that.

I come from a violent background. So I became hard. I realised that I had made myself that way to deal with a feeling of abandonment and shame.

The two sports are as different as Ping-Pong and rugby. In boxing, you don’t know what’s going to happen. In wrestling, it’s already prearranged. But the thing I didn’t know about wrestling is that you really get hurt. Because, you know, you’re wrestling in front of a live audience, and you end up doing things like jumps or slams, and 40 percent of the time you don’t land right.

I grew up in a gym in Miami, the one where Muhammad Ali trained. I had 142 amateur fights and lost three.

Hollywood's famous for putting you in a box.

I don't mind getting punched in the nose by a guy standing in front of me. It's getting stabbed in the back that I can't handle.