When you're wearing jeans there's a shift in your center of gravity. A costume like this and a character like this, there's no way to hide. If you try and play him any way sort of modern or normal, you diminish. He's larger than life. He's 150 percent. You've got to go for it all the time. It was just impossible.

I suppose you just feel on an instinctive level if something is honest.

I didn't want people to go out wanting to go tool up against the bad guys (and at impressionable ages). I said, don't shy away from the violence or pull back on this, commit to this.

I don't think you see a pirate with a parrot on his shoulder, for example. And even with the accents.

I'm Volstag and what you see is what you get. He's a bon vivant lover of life epicurean goodfellow. He's a god, which helps. He's full of life. He reminds me very much of Falstaff. There's a wonderful innocence to him and the steadfast loyalty of a big Saint Bernard dog.

For me, because I've had classical theater training, when people say, "Oh, my god, the play is amazing!," I'll never get to see it because I'm in it.

If the project piques my interest and scares me a little bit, then it's got me hooked.