First of all, let's talk about the tattoo on your back in the movie!
Well, one of the things Francis Dolarhyde has is a tattoo. It's based on a William Blake watercolour. It's not a replica or a copy of it but a design that's taken from the painting. The original watercolour is the back of a muscular two-footed beast with wings and they've taken the delineation of the wings and made a tattoo of it which, as a character, I have on my back. It covers all of my back right down to my thighs and my legs. It took hours to have it put on my back and I had to have a lot of patience.
You also had to change yourself physically, didn't you?
Yes. I'm quite a bit bigger and bulkier in this movie than I normally am. I had to work out a lot to get in shape and look the part - because in the original novel Dolarhyde is described as a bodybuilder and he has this kind of imposing physicality. And of course, there's that scene where I show off the tattoo in all its glory - so I just did everything I could before shooting started to build up some muscle. I think it worked!
Why did you accept this role?
I think we were all drawn to the film because of the quality of the script. I think this movie has gone back to the slightly more restrained violence that we saw in "The Silence of the Lambs". You only see the moments before a violent act is committed or afterwards. But really this story works purely on the suspense of Will Graham [Ed Norton's character] and Harvey Keitel, who plays his boss Jack Crawford, their detective work, and going to see Hannibal Lecter. A lot of it is psychological and for me, I like that. It's not literal. The violence and the grotesqueness isn't literally on the screen. It isn't in your face.
And you know, for me, Dolarhyde is a tragic figure. I don't mean he's sympathetic, but I think he's genuinely uncertain and emotionally torn. Playing someone like that, that appealed to me.
What did Brett Ratner bring to the film as a director?
Brett has amazingly good instincts in this film. He's very open to what the actors bring. He has strong views himself. And I think it's good to come to the project without too much certainty because until you give utterance to the lines, you never really know what's going to come out. And I always feel better when I surprise myself rather than being in a straitjacket of what someone else expects. I like to feel enthusiasm from a director, especially that enthusiasm for exploring and seeing what else is there. And Brett has that.
"Red Dragon" opens in UK cinemas on Friday 11th October 2002.
