As an actor how weird is it that first time you see the movie to see what the director has chosen for the takes that they’re going to use in the movie?  Is there like annervousness?

Matthew: Always. My God, yeah.  There is and occasionally you’re like didn’t I do one better than that?  You’re never a judge of your own work and generally I hate seeing….I hate it.  When you’re playing a character that’s American or something like that, then I’m all right then watching it because it’s not you up there really.  I know that sounds bizarre but that’s the thing about playing English parts and particularly something as subtle as this.  Obviously it’s slightly mannered and whatever but it is an extension of seeing ones own self, so it’s…I don’t know…it’s very odd, but I was all right with it.  I was very happy with it.

Now with this film because of the whole British styling and the period piece scenes are very, very deliberate. Actions, mannerisms.  How did that play into the number of takes and with the production?  Or with the rehearsal time to minimize the number of takes?

Matthew: Rehearsal time wasn’t really rehearsing which the way we did it I really like.  It’s more like this, sitting around talking about it.  Talking about it extensively, so you’ve really got your homework done.  You’ve nailed it down and you’re not going to be suddenly get to set and go shit, I really liked leaning on the television in the hotel room and we haven’t got television now obviously, you know, so rehearsals were good and most of one’s own homework, you take yourself to a national gallery.  No one needs to….when you’re doing a project like this if you haven’t got any inspirations get off your ass and do something and work around and half of it’s in your imagination in your mind’s eye and half of it happens on the day.  That’s the difference between theatre, you rehearse so much for theatre and you try to get out of that rehearsal thing in a way, and with this it keeps you on your toes because you haven’t done anything.  So you’re shitting yourself most of the time.

What was your favorite scene?

Matthew: One of the favorites just from an acting point of view, I mean anything with Ben is just a joy, and I like doing the long 1 take scene which is when Ben in the bath and he gets out and we sort of follow through and he does his thing and it was a bit looser because you can be off-screen and talking and something that a lot of directors don’t use and it’s really nice.  There was a fluidity to it that I liked for some reason and also I got to watch Ben do his thing and he’s such a pleasure.  He’s such a marvelous actor.

Did you find some scenes hard to do? I mean there’s some actors…

Matthew: Sex scenes are never easy to do, you know?  Hello everyone, this is my cock. You know?  That’s always tricky when you’re got half naked people standing around and you’re just trying to cover up her as much as possible because she’s uncomfortable as you would be.  So that’s a long day, otherwise I got to go to Venice again. Going to Morocco, going to Morocco I found a little hard because there was the language barrier and things took longer and we didn’t have any time there at all really and that may be the reason a couple of scenes from Morocco were cut.  I think that was more just down to time.  But yeah, so that anything that was ever hard about this job is just the energy level when you’re 8 weeks in it’s like, I’m exhausted and I think I’ve drunk too much coffee.  So no, just a pleasure really.

I was going to ask you about filming on location.  Do you enjoy that aspect of it?  Is it exciting at the beginning and then all of a sudden people watching you becomes old?  Can you talk a little bit about that?

Matthew: I think we were lucky like the first time I filmed in Venice, for example, we were doing it in modern dress so they didn’t stop the crowds and that becomes arduous because honestly people look at the camera.  It’s like a blue light to a fly.  You explain in 7 different languages please don’t.  So that gets old pretty quickly because it’s nothing to do with your take being bad, it’s just that everyone in the background is fucking up.  I’ve never really done a huge amount in the studio.  I mean, “Watchmen” is my first experience really of doing a huge amount in the studio, so I always been on location and I love it because it’s kind of like everyone’s away from home, you know, you have dinner every night and you have a glass of wine before you go to bed so that really helps with certainly like having a family situation and with…it just helps.  Most of the time you finish and then everyone goes off home if you’re filming in London and so you feel like you lose out a little and I don’t know I think that’s one of the reasons that the relationships seem quite strong in this is that it gave people time to go over the fact….well actually Emma dispels all that straight away but by the end it’s not oh my God it’s Emma Thompson.  It’ s like it’s you.  I’ve already made 10 drinks—your turn to buy at the bar.  So I don’t know.  I love location shoots, yeah.  I don’t worry about it.

Now you’ve got probably 3 of your most signature roles would be Ben Calder, Gary Spargo and now Charles Ryder.  All 3 totally different but you balance each one like walking on a tightrope and you do it beautifully. What qualities do you look for in a role considering the diversity of the parts that you choose?

Matthew: Well, I’ve been lucky enough…I hope it doesn’t sound arrogant but I think it makes it…I’ve been very lucky to be involved with all those….even like Chasing Liberty one would hardly say it’s the world’s greatest piece of work, but it was still a good script and it was working with good people and it’s also a really good confidence builder in something…which is however how many millions of dollars have gone into it and you’re a bit of a star and gives you the perfect example of learning to forget about that and get on with your craft.

And you got to be on location for that one, too.

Matthew: And again on location in some amazing places.

I just watched it for the 30^th time the other night, so.

Matthew: Bless your heart.  You’re the one.

I’m the one.

Matthew: But no, I wouldn’t say I choose projects and I wouldn’t be as wanky as to say they choose me but for some reason the directors have …it’s their vision and they decided I fit into it so I do think there is something very fortunate about having had these year breaks or year and a half breaks in between when I haven’t been suited to anything and haven’t wanted to be.  Some of the scripts you see are so generic and whatever so I mean for example the last 2 jobs I ended up doing the top 100 novels of all time, so that’s a joy and it doesn’t get any better than that because when your source material is that good and when you have such beautiful pros explaining stuff like Charles’ nature and then it gives you some comfort into hoping that more particularly people who have read the novel will see a lot of the subtleties in your work and feel like…because some people will see it and it’s like he’s a bit dull and he underplayed it and you’re like trying to find a balance and somebody will have read the novel which comes back to what you were saying about what they will take away.  I hope they take away that we fine tuned it to an area that we’ve only given that amount of time to go to that place.  I don’t know. I hope they’ll probably be another adaptation in 20 years.

So what did you take away from the film?

Matthew: Very nice ash tray from the York Hotel and a really great set of friends.   I don’t know.  I’ve watched it once so I have to watch it again in New York and probably at London and then it’ll get put to bed as all these things do because you can only…you’ve got to move forward.  But a bit of confidence and Ben Whishaw, Emma Thompson, Haley Atwell on speed dial.

Can you talk about what you have coming up next?

Matthew: “Watchmen” is coming up so I have the pleasure of going to Comic-Con.  I’m literally throwing myself to the lions.  So that’s next and apart from that who knows at the moment.  Just reading and fishing and waiting for the next thing to come along whatever that may be.

I was going to say so I’m assuming that this quasi-SAG strike/not strike is affecting you just like everybody else?

Matthew: Well, I’m not a member of SAG.

You’re not?

Matthew: So, but at the same time you have to be very wary about work because you can suddenly become someone’s worst enemy and not just someone, a whole group of people as worst enemies.  So I think if a job comes up in London that’s outside of it then fine and if not then I’m used to waiting around to work so I’ll just be sitting at home watching re-runs of “West Wing”.