There’s an honesty to Clark, Kal-El – Kal-El’s the better way of saying it because he is both Superman and Clark – there’s an honesty to him which crosses over on both – I don’t like to use the word ‘identities,’ but I will because I can’t think of a better one. So, it is not that tough to make that swap and change.
People have this belief that actors are able to go out there and say, ‘Oh I choose this job,’ but most of the time we’re just taking the job we can get. We don’t just get offered thousands of jobs; we might earn one job a year and that’s the one we’ll take because we’ve got to pay the rent.
I suppose that when I’m building a character, it’s usually related to what their family is like and who their parents are, as well as how I grew up – that nurture side.
I was overweight when I went to school. In fact, I was overweight when I left, just taller. Fatty Cavill was the nickname. I mean, no one wants to be Fatty Cavill.
A lot of the stuff you do as an actor – or I do, because I can’t speak for everyone – is not always consciously thought out. A lot of the time, for me, it’s actually just feeling stuff, and it happens all in the moment and your body reacts.
Some people thrive under pressure, but pressure can also ruin your performance, it can push you down angles which you don’t want to go.
I work out two, two and a half hours a day. For ‘Immortals,’ it was body-weight stuff: crunches, pullups, and martial arts-based cardio.
‘Immortals’ was very much a martial arts based training program – a lot of body weight stuff, very little in the way of actually lifting heavy weights, and a very, very low calorie diet.