You appear very tired in the film. Did you deliberately deprive yourself of sleep to affect this?
I didn't sleep very much during the film. You just get into the rhythm of the character. I don't like acting things; I like feeling things.

Describe your character's journey through the film.
He goes from lost-but-innocent to being tormented by this woman and the codes. The codes are what he feels comfortable with. He's more calm when he's talking about the machines. He's not arrogant about it; he's just dismissive of people who don't see the significance of what he sees. His brain won't allow things like that to interfere with him.

It's a delicious irony that he's comfortable with one enigma, the machine, but not the other, Claire.
He has a description of the Enigma machine - you press this key any number of times, and it always comes out differently. In a way, you could use that as a description of women. You can't predict the way they behave. If he'd understood that, he would've been less perturbed about the behaviour of Claire.

How did you feel about losing the "X-Men" role to Hugh Jackman, when "MI:2" needed re-shoots?
Yeah, I'm fine. I would've liked it. I'd been training for it, but you have to move on.

How do you perceive your career now?
I do what I feel is right at the time. Opportunities come along and I take them or I don't. I feel happy about what I'm doing, and I work instinctively. I'm doing a Dylan Thomas film, "Map of Love", with Mick Jagger producing again. It's a wonderful script.

"Enigma" is released in UK cinemas on Friday 28th September