I woke up crying and then turned beside me
and saw my wife, and just died, held her and started crying
If I see him, I'll give him a piece of my mind!
Stanhope.
Hello, Stanhope.
Your character has a complicated relationship
with Raleigh, played by Asa Butterfield.
How did you maintain relationships on set?
We just didn't talk to each other.
You just ignored each other? Got on with it.
I think what's great about Asa, and in fact,
for all of us, we were all, we all knew
when to switch it on. As and when
needed, you know, we all knew
that once the camera starts rolling
you need to be professional.
You need to not make each other laugh and,
you need to, kind of, focus.
But, at the same time, we were all willing and wanting
to, kind of, lighten the mood in between takes.
So, we, kind of, found a very, very,
happy medium, all of us.
With Asa especially, he's so professional,
and so switched on but at the same time,
you know, he likes to joke and he likes to have fun.
You know, it's a job at the end of the day,
but at the same time, and we're making a movie.
But, you know, you can have fun while you're doing it.
You can have fun. Well, last time we met you, you were
singing a lot on set. -Oh no.
So, how is your singing voice progressing?
-Oh, it's got worse, actually. -Worse?
-Yeah. -I thought it was quite nice.
My little boy, you know, I have to sing
Disney songs, pretty much all the time,
and I can safely say that none of them sound very good.
-I don't believe that, I don't believe that. -My little boy, no, trust me.
I feel like you are amazing secretly,
but you're just not letting the world see your true talents.
No, no. If I ever played a Disney prince, you know, I'd be
very, very, very surprised.
Well, you never know!
I got to see the trenches and the
conditions for the first time.
It was horrible seeing the rats there, how much of that
can be faked for the cameras?
And, did you actually have real rats just running about?
We had a scene where a rat had to
be coming through. So, we really had real rats.
I think the worst thing for me, there was a scene in which my
character hallucinates, it's hallucinating maggots.
And we had real worms and real maggots and the
smell of them was so, so bad.
Like, I was genuinely gagging.
Because it was over my shoulder, so
a part of me was like, 'We could have used anyone's shoulder.'
I sat there for, like, for about half-an-hour
to an hour of these maggots just falling out of wood, and
it was revolting. -Yes.
But, you know, I think it's quite enjoyable, I enjoy
watching how, like, set designers and
prop masters, they, kind of, come up with such detailed
versions of the real, you know, real
props, real things from that time,
and, you know, I think there's something really quite exciting about
being an actor and stepping back in time, basically.
Yeah, it was so claustrophobic and intense
how do your other roles compare to this as an endurance test?
Wow, I've been fortunate to have quite a varied
career over the last few years especially, and I think
this has definitely been a departure from anything I've done
before, it's a little more serious and a little more, I suppose, complex.
As a character, he's much more three-dimensional, and
I think psychologically I really had to gain a better
understanding of a man who suffers from PTSD
and the pressures of war than I have, you know,
had to before.
But, at the same time, every part
that I play has its challenges,
and that's something that's very important
to me, that's what makes me decide
to do something or not, it's that,
will it teach me something new?
It was interesting when you had that dream sequence,
do you ever have dreams about work?
So, I'm one of those people, I do dream,
I dream a lot, I know that I dream, but
I never, ever, remember my dreams.
I wake up going, 'I just had a really, really good dream,'
but I don't remember what happened.
Don't you find that annoying?
I wake up, like, scared, like, a start and I'm like,
what's just happened? Where?
There's only one dream, which was harrowing, that I've
ever remembered, and it was so, so detailed
that I genuinely thought it was real.
I woke up, and I remember I was crying.
Basically, no, I won't tell you what it is.
But, I woke up crying and then turned,
turned beside me and saw my wife
and just, like, I held her and started crying,
but I never remember things.
(Music)