It's pretty tough on your loved ones to try to get back into a rhythm, especially when all you want to do is do nothing.

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.

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.

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].

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

[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.