What was your most difficult scene to shoot?

James: The scene in the tea room where they see each other for the first time in 6 years.  That was incredibly difficult.  Also the scene where we lambaste middle Briony and we really give her a tailing.  That was quite difficult actually because you don’t want—we could have gone further or I could have gone further but you don’t want to take up all the emotional space.  You want to leave some of the emotional space for the audience to feel something.  If you’re just standing on stage crying the whole time, you know the audience kind of just goes fuck.  Actually that was the same thing with the big Dunkirk tracking sequence—the big 5 minute short.  Very easy to get carried away with the emotion of the recreation, the evocative nature of something like that is very easy to get carried away with.  It would have been wrong for the actors to get carried away with that, I think because soldiers at that time in the middle of that experience some of them would be but not all of them would be crying their eyes out and all that kind of stuff and then it was quite hard as an actor to not to feel the loss, to feel the pain, to feel the waste of what happened on those beaches in 1940-1941.  It was just incredible for me.  It was just about holding back and being a bit like a soldier in one way and going “this is war. This is madness”, but at the same time going “this is my job as well” and somehow holding back that distance from your character.

I read that you considered becoming a priest. 

James: Yeah, I did.

What made you decide to go into acting instead?

James: I decided to give up the idea of being a priest before I decided I wanted to be an actor.  I considered it for a couple of weeks really.  I’m a young Catholic, do you know what I mean.  You’re going to consider it.  I really wanted to think about becoming a missionary.  So I just got the idea of going to places like South America and Africa and you know China or the Indian sub-continent.  It was all like hugely exciting then I realized I’d be going there to make people Catholics or something. That’s a bit dodgy, that’s a bit not right.  So I gave up that idea.

Speaking of choosing your parts, what happens when a big Universal Studios comic book movie comes your way?

James: You accept it. 

Is that how it happened?

James: Again, I have to audition for that.  I screen tested.  They flew me over here and I had to do a couple of auditions and then they didn’t give me the part for quite a long time—for like 6 months then they came back and said do you want to do it and I was like what’s changed?  They said “nothing.  We always wanted you”.  You’re like, ”did you?” So, yeah.

The trailer looks really amazing.  Did you think about those sort of John Woo gun poses while you were doing it?

James: No, I didn’t actually.  To be honest with you I don’t really watch…I watch action films if they’ve got sci-fi in them or fantasy in them or you know something like that.  I don’t really watch the John Woo type action film where it’s just action.  I like it when it’s tinged with concept or tinged with philosophy or something like that which this film is.  And it’s also tinged with a manic, mad, weird, brilliant, genius director called Timur Bekmambetov who’s a very strange guy.  When he makes an odd decision, he doesn’t make it strategically, you know what I mean?  He doesn’t go I’m going to make a really cool, odd, left field, off beat decision here and that’s going to mark me out as an ingenious director.  He just makes decisions that happen to be really fucking strange and people around him inform him that they’re strange and he goes really?  That’s interesting and then carries on, you know.  It gives that style that he has a truth I think about something real.

Could you talk about the challenges of working with someone who’s such in the limelight?  I’m talking about Ms. Jolie.

James: I think working with Keira and Angelina actually 2 of the world’s biggest stars is quite an eye opener that kind of intrusion that happens in your life’s and the scrutiny they’re under and how difficult it must be for them definitely. I think it’s undeniable.  Other than that I didn’t get an insight to any of their lives too much.  I did get an insight into how much is made up and how much is false.  99.999999% of it is seems to be bullshit and it’s quite harming I think because it robs you of your identity.  The world thinks you are something and you’re not that and it’s odd.

Isn’t it weird though—not weird but isn’t it a challenge for you because you’re starting to enter into this bigger Hollywood arena of big budget films, it’s possibly going to happen to you as well.

James: I don’t know.  I don’t think I’m ever going to get to the point where people run across a freeway to take a picture of me.  I really don’t see it getting to that level of hysteria unless I have an affair with the Queen of Sweden or something like that.  I don’t think they have a Queen in Sweden—I think they do—yeah, they do don’t they? Lovely girl… but you know.  So who knows?  I try to keep my life low key and I don’t like going to parties unless they’re thrown by a friend of mine or they’re to do with a project I’m in or it’s because I’ve been nominated for an award.  Then I’ll go to the parties and do all that, but I won’t go to the latest Samsung free phone exhibition, you know what I mean?  You stay away from all that and hopefully gives you the chance to stay away and opt out of it a little bit.

What was it about Joe that was different from previous directors that you’ve worked with?

James: I think his vision is 360.  Directors have to have multi-tasking abilities and you have to be able to concentrate in different areas at one time.  And they all do and some are visual and acting and some of them are acting and script and some of them are visual and script and not all of them can always do that but Joe is 360.  He can do it all.  He doesn’t understand how to do everybody’s job, but he understands everybody’s job, you know.  He tries to figure out what it is about your job that’s important.  I mean the crew as well.  I don’t just mean the actors.  He applies his storytelling ability to everybody’s department and I think that’s something that’s really special about Joe.

Are you going to make it a point to choose another smaller film after “Wanted”?

James: I’ve never made strategic decisions and I refuse to.  I’ll do what feels right and whatever comes along and I like the idea of it, I’ll do it.  You know, it’s like Joe—after he did “Pride and Prejudiced” people said to him you should do a small independent modern contemporary piece that isn’t based on a book and he didn’t and it’s worked out fine for him.  You know what I mean?  I think good work is good work. 

How has the writer’s strike affected you?

James: Not at all.  Oh no, it did actually.  It did actually.  It has affected me slightly.  A project I wanted to get going this year has to wait until the end of the year I think or maybe the beginning of next.  The end of next year or the beginning of 2009.

Which project was that?

James: I’m not telling.

Were you contacted yet for the 3^rd “Narnia”?  Are you going to do that? 

James: He’s not in it. 

Are you doing anything for the holidays?

James: I don’t think so.  Nothing that interesting actually.

Any toys or gifts you want?  It’s the roundup so it’s that time of year.

James: What would I love?  Is there anything I would particularly love?  I’d love a pair of crampons.  I’m not even joking. Ice boots.