I think it's always difficult no matter how similar your characters are to yourself to get into that mindset, because however much they are similar to you, they're not you.
When you really want a role and you really want a character, you become quite close to the script and the project, and it is sad when it doesn't go your way. But I've found there's always another one, which will be as good if not better. You can't let your failures bring you down when you're an actor, because then you can't get up.
TV and film both attract me equally. In both, you do search for a role that would be enjoyable to do, that has a great storyline and then, secondly, you look at the cast and the crew - are they respectable? How I look at it is my character - has the character got enough substance? It can't just be a one faced character, which is there to fill a gap. He has to have a purpose, so if it ticks all of those boxes then generally it's a good choice.
In terms of my relationships with a lot of the adult characters, when I was working with Harrison, it wasn't like a verbal agreement, but we both understood that because there was this constant tension between our characters, we couldn't say "Cut" and start acting normal. We had to keep an essence of that relationship in our characters off screen which is really important.
I always think that trying to push yourself as an actor in a direction that you've never been before, developing characters which are more difficult to get into the head of, or are more interesting and further away from yourself, is always a challenge. But, you want to take up that challenge and try your best.
I think a lot of that is what helped me develop my character. I wouldn't say it was Method, but it was definitely a little more in depth than I've done before in terms of acting. With the other kids, we all were such good friends by the time we started shooting. Because of that, it allowed us to trust each other more to push the dynamics of the relationship to places which you might not be able to had you not trusted that person.
I like to keep a broad scope and read lots of different things with lots of different types of characters. Doing that is going to help develop me as an actor; you push yourself.
When you're younger, you get scripts that you are too young for and now I'm getting scripts, which I think, "I'm too old for this character." They can always shift things around to make it work and make the ages work. But I'm definitely getting more complex and interesting roles and less what you would expect. So I can experiment more and have a bit more freedom when I'm putting things on tape.
I think that a lot of the time I don't go for something in particular. I see what comes to me, I filter it out. I never really strive to play a particular character or do a particular genre of film. As long as it's a good script and a great range of people and my character is really interesting I can't see any reason not to do it.
For me, with any character, there are different ways that you approach understanding him, and in this film in particular, because I had the novel to refer to. It's always really helpful to have all of that information and all of those hundreds more words which give you an idea into the background and your character and all.
