Obviously I was talking to my parents and my girlfriend all the time, but it's one thing to finally be in the same room and get to be with each other and just hang out.

[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.

My character is called The Hunter. He's the main antagonist in the movie. In a nutshell, he's a slightly deranged natural born killer who's weirdly determined to succeed at his job, whatever his employment is. He's a mercenary and there's a high body count for him in this film [Never Go Back].

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.

I was eating with the help of a nutritionist so I was definitely putting in the appropriate calories and vitamins and minerals into my body; however, it was still so little that if I had the tiniest piece of sugar, my brain would go crazy. If I had some alcohol during the run of that play, my brain would go crazy.

When I did Casual, I just let myself put on weight because he's a schoolteacher. He's not meant to be muscle-y.

I had just come off of doing a play in Los Angeles which actually got me the role. It was called Bent and it was at the Mark Taper Forum. I was playing a homosexual in 1930 to 1934 Berlin who is eventually put into a concentration camp for the second half of the play. I had lost about 38 pounds for that.