What did it feel like to get as thin as you did for this character?
You want to get to the truth without alienating an audience (as Christian Bale did in 'The Machinist'). We all wanted to get to a certain weight in order to portray these men in the right kind of light, but without going so dangerously thin that you're in danger of irreversible damage to your own body and also alienating the audience.
I do remember one of the producers saying to me, 'You don't have to lose so much weight, don't take it too far.' But of course you're playing real people and real events so you want to do that justice.
These men went through hell for three years or more and we were losing weight for three months without the abhorrent events that you can't even begin to imagine. It never felt so bad in light of what these guys went through. It helped to give you a respect and insight into what they had to endure.
Were the cast of POWs treated differently from the rest of the cast?
The POW group went on this diet and exercise regime which consisted of three hours exercise a day which you had to burn more calories than you were consuming, so your weight would drop rapidly. You had to maintain that for four months. We bonded over this particular exercise.
Just being in the canteen and having to eat one cabbage leaf and two grains of rice in light of all the hundreds of others who were surrounded with mountains of food with huge massive bowls of custard and dessert and crème brulee. That also was a bit torturous. It was a mind game to walk past their tables where they kind of smiled and pointed at their huge bowls of dessert and you had to exist with this tunnel vision and not get side-tracked or jealous.
How could you not faint with so little food and so much exercise?
Your blood sugar levels are low. It's hard to maintain focus, let alone going on a five-mile jog for five hours. We couldn't exercise too much just because we didn't have the strength. There were a lot of guys because it was the army and normally you would go off and play soccer on lunch breaks or weekends.
The rest of the POWs didn't have the energy to do that. But what we did was have a ping pong championship which was as much as our energy could master. It consisted of this light-weight ball and bat and not too much running around. I think I did quite well. I came in the top three. I might've gotten a bronze medal or something.
What were some of the boot camp routines?
The rangers have a far more extensive boot camp for two weeks living in the outback (in Australia). The POWs got off lightly to begin with, ours lasted only a few days. This consisted of a re-enacted three mile march (of the 60 mile Death March with 20,000 U.S. military and 70,000 Filipino troops into the Japanese camp) which gave us a glimpse of what these guys did.
We did it barefoot because these guys would've done it barefoot to stop the prisoners from running away. We were suddenly ambushed by our fellow Japanese actors who were all in their military regalia and carrying samurai swords. We were walking along and the next thing I know we've got guns pointed in our face. This was an exercise up until the point where they pulled out these huge thick bamboo truncheons and started beating, physically smacking my fellow POWs.
I later learned that they were both stunt men and it was completely safe, but their pads were hidden in their uniforms and I just thought this art imitating life exercise had just gone horrendously wrong! Then I was yelled at and told to sit down and was completely vexed when I tried to stop it. Then I could hear them when they were being beaten, this hollow sound like a protective pad so I knew it was part of the exercise but it was still very alarming.
Were you actually punished when you objected to the exercises?
We went through roll call with the protocol and the conduct that you had to exist within the camps. If anyone was rude or talked back we as a whole group suffered and would have to carry stones above our heads for half an hour.
We had to dig trenches and have rice and a glass of water for the day so it brought the group together. You'd have to multiply this by the billion to get some kind of understanding of the brutality that these men endured.
Did you get hurt at all during boot camp?
I didn't have any injuries on set but I did have a bad wipe-out surfing. There's beautiful surf in Australia, but it's a very aggressive ocean. Londoners aren't renowned for their surfing abilities; the Thames doesn't have surf like Queensland.
I got spectacularly wiped out and a horrendous hit by the nose of my board. I got forty or so stitches in my mouth and a chunk of my lip missing. It just goes to show; don't do dangerous sports while filming - the camera was on the back of my head for a lot of the time.
