Far from the Madding Crowd’s Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts) is basically every girl’s dream guy. He’s kind, loyal, ambitious and love animals. Trouble is, when he proposes to Bathsheba Everdene (Carey Mulligan), she’s got ambitions of her own and they’re more in line with running a successful farm, not getting married and settling down. However, soon enough, her priorities change and she starts to consider not one but three potential suitors, Mr. Oak, the cocky soldier Frank Troy (Tom Sturridge) and the wealthy farm owner Michael Boldwood (Michael Sheen).

With Far from the Madding Crowd currently in select theaters, I got the opportunity to sit down with Schoenaerts to discuss the challenge of playing an all-around good guy. We also talked about what he learned at farming boot camp, the sheep belly puncturing scene and more. You can catch it all in the video interview below and, in case you missed it, click here for my chat with Mulligan and here to check out my interview with Sheen.

Matthias Schoenaerts:

• Schoenaerts makes a modern day online dating profile for Mr. Oak.
• On going to farming boot camp.
• Shooting the sheep belly puncturing scene.
• Playing a guy who doesn’t have any flaws and keeping him from being a boring character.
• Schoenaerts predicts that Eddie Redmayne will score his second Oscar nomination for The Danish Girl.