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.

It really reminds me of the great movies of the 30's and 40's with huge sets and voluminous fireplaces you could walk around in. Glazed floors. I was expecting a Busby Berkley dance number. Big fanfare and all the girls coming out. I'd have joined in. It's got that scale, you know?

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.

There's not a lot of direct back story but you do get to see them playing around each other a lot.

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

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.

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