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].

The director, Moisés Kaufman, just received the national medal of the arts from President [Barack] Obama . He wrote and directed The Laramie Project and he has directed several Pulitzer prize-winning plays. He's a pretty profound director in the theater.

I only had a three-week break from the beginning of Bent, so I went from one thing to the next. I got back [from shooting Jack Reacher] and there was a sense of, "Oh my God, what do I do now?" I don't have personal trainers around me all the time, I'm not on a meal plan, which I had been on for almost a year straight. There was a lot of sleeping.

The guy [Tom Cruise] is a machine.

For some roles, like when I was doing Bent, that was harder and I didn't find that helpful because I was so calorie deprived, my brain wasn't getting food. I would end up not being as focused or as clearheaded as I would have liked to be during the run of the performances. I would lose those quality impulses that you lean on when you're acting because of malnutrition. basically. But I looked skinny.

You're working so hard and so many hours, you simply don't get to visit with everybody when you're gone for five months. That's part of the trade in we make with this career. You don't get to maintain the intimacy you would like to.One of the big things I was doing was working on reestablishing that.

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."