[Jack Reacher] is the longest I'd ever shot anything - and let's be clear, this is my first studio feature film - so there was a huge learning curve.

The guy [Tom Cruise] is a machine.

I'm not a method actor but it certainly does help to have that kind of dedication. I treated my preparation like I was in the military. I didn't go out ever. I went out for drinks probably twice in five months. I lived very monastically.

A sociopath can imitate emotions, where a psychopath really doesn't have that capacity. They can't fool people into thinking anything and they're usually lacking major empathy for anybody besides themselves.

The role I played [in theatre] was originated by Ian McKellen in 1979 and he came. I didn't know he was there and I walked out at the end of the play, which is a very intense play - my character is required to do some really horrible things - and the director was waiting backstage and he goes, "Obviously I didn't want to tell you guys, but Ian was here today" and we, of course, freaked out.Ian McKellen said some really beautiful, kind things, one of which was, "It's so much harder to watch than it is to do."

You can hear how hard I work, I think, from these stories I'm telling. I'm incredibly dedicated and I'm sort of known as that to a point that people tease me about it.

You get a role like this in a big action movie [like Jack Reacher] and you can go one of two ways: you can paint in broad strokes, which happens a lot in action films, or you can get very detailed.