At the film's press day, the stage and screen actor talked about his process of approaching all of his roles, most specifically that of Leeds United coach Brian Clough and his doomed 44-day tenure as manager of the reigning champions of English futball, in The Damned United.

Q: How did you go about re-creating that interview with Brian Clough in the TV studio, at the beginning of the film? It seemed so much like him. Was that difficult to capture?

Michael: It was us re-creating an actual interview that happened in life that you can watch. It's just an uncanny lifelike ability that I have to change. The interviews that book-end the film, at the beginning and at the end, are both based on real interviews. It is extraordinary viewing to watch them. The fact that, on his first day at Leeds, he went to go do a TV interview first is kind of extraordinary.

And, for that that last interview they did, they really did surprise him with Don Revie. He didn't know he was going to be there. It was the day that he'd been sacked, and he just went to the TV interview and then, suddenly, there's his nemesis sitting there next to him, on his day of humiliation. It's really extraordinary viewing to watch it. And, I watched both interviews, over and over again, not to try and copy what he did, but just to try and get to the heart of what's going on for him, rather than to try and slavishly imitate him.

Q: Was this process any different from playing other historical characters?

Michael: The process is always the same, in terms of the work I do beforehand. I'll start with just watching the person, and I'll find one book and start reading through one book. I don't know whether it's a good book or not, I'll just find a book about him because you've got to start somewhere, and then I'll start watching footage. There's a team of researchers who put together all the footage for me and find all the stuff. Then, I slowly start working my way through everything that exists about the person. Eventually, I'll find there'll be one book that's really useful, and there'll be certain bits of footage that I find I connect with, for some reason. I might not even know why I connect with it to begin with, and I might only find that out by the end, but something will speak to me about it. I'll compile all that and then that becomes my talisman in research, and I'll just go back over that, over and over again.

Q: What stood out about Brian for you?

Michael: With Brian, I suppose what I found was that, for a man who was famous in Britain for being the epitome of arrogance and self-confidence and self-belief, the thing that surprised me was how little self-confidence and self-belief he had, and how much he had to achieve things in order to boost up his self-esteem. Anyone who's that driven to achieve and to win and to be the best, I think feels like they have to make up for something. There's some sort of never-ending hunger for something that can never be fulfilled.

With Brian, it was the fact that he was stopped from doing what he wanted to do, when he was a younger man. He was a player and that was his dream, and that dream was cut short. With anyone, if you look at people who get in car accidents or motorbike accidents when they are young and they're not able to do what they want to do, there's a whole psychological thing that you have to go through to accept that, and I don't think he ever really accepted that. So, there was always this frustrated resentment in him. That whole disguise, that mask, was covering that up, and underneath that was a lot of vulnerability, insecurity, anxiety and wanting to be told, "You're the best," rather than him being able to just go, "I am the best." He didn't have the confidence to do that, so I suppose that was the revelation. He was man who was supposedly one thing, but then I discovered something different underneath.

Q: Did you remember Brian Clough?

Michael: For the events of the film, when he was at Leeds in 1974, I was five, so I don't remember that. But, his greatest achievements were after that. He went on and found a team called Nottingham Forest. They were in the bottom of the second division, and he took them not only to the top of the first division, but into Europe and they won the European Cup twice, two years in a row. So, what he achieved there, with Peter Taylor again, was unprecedented and never done again. I remember that. That's what I kind of grew up with.

And, also, the later Clough, towards the end of his time in Nottingham Forest, as the alcohol took its grip on him more and more. He became more ravaged and bloated looking, and he became, in some ways, quite a tragic figure because he and Taylor argued again, split up and then never made up. Taylor died and I don't think Clough ever forgave himself for never making things up with Taylor. He just got more and more in the grip of alcohol.

Q: You played Tony Blair twice. Any talk of doing a sequel to Brian Clough's life?

Michael: This is an adaptation of a book, and there is no other book to do. But, there is a whole other story there, which would make for great telling, so maybe in a few years time, when I'm a bit older, I'll do the last few years of Blair and the last few years of Clough, as well.

Q: How much of a futbol fan are you?

Michael: I'm a big football fan, but not as big as I used to be. When I was a kid, all I cared about was futball. All I wanted to do was be a futball player. When I was a kid, if I wasn't at school, I'd be playing futball in the street, or in the futball field next to me. Even when I was at school, every time there was a break, I'd be playing futball and talking about it, and getting futball stickers and filling up albums.

Then, when I was 12, I got offered the possibility of going to play for Arsenal, the youth team. I lived in a small town in Wales and it would've meant my whole family having to go and live in London, so my dad said, "No. If you're still interested when you're 16, then you can go then." But, it's too late when you're 16. You have to go when you're much younger. And, also, I was into other things by then, like girls, drinking and acting.

Q: Did that make you frustrated at all?

Michael: Not really because it was my decision not to do it. And then, I came out of drama school when I was 21. If, at the age of 23-24, I was really enjoying what I was doing and everything was ahead of me and I was doing well, and then something had happened that stopped me from being able to ever act again, I just don't know what I'd have done. That was my point of connection with Brian. If I was then not able to act, and then did something that meant I watched other people doing that all the time, what would that do to me?

So, when we were making the film, I read that when Clough was doing training practice with the players, because he wasn't that much older than his players, since he was a young manager when he started, he couldn't resist getting in there and playing with them and showing them that he was better than them. I thought that would make absolute sense because, if I was directing actors, I'd want to get up on the stage or be in front of the camera and go, "Look, this is how you do it." At the same time, as there's a passion for what you do, there's a frustration and a terrible sadness about that, which he completely covered up.

Q: How much did you think of it as a human relations film and not a futball film?

Michael: I don't think of it as a futball film at all. I think of it as a film about, if anything, a marriage. It's just a very unconventional marriage, but nevertheless, it's about this relationship between Clough and Taylor that was very intimate and very co-dependent. They needed each other to succeed. They relied on each other. In his book, Taylor talks about spending time with Clough in a room, where Clough was throwing things against the wall out of frustration, and then weeping and sobbing, uncontrollably into Taylor's arms. This was a physical, emotional and psychological intimacy between two men that is quite rare, I suppose. There's all the complexity of a marriage in there, as well as the resentment that grows up from that. Clough felt like, "I don't need him. I can be successful without him." There were all those resentments and frustrations.

So, if anything, I think of it as a film about that. And then, you had this professional rivalry and this affair, and this obsession that Clough had about Revie and Leeds United, which was like the affair that he goes off and has. Then, at the end of it, when it all falls apart, he goes back and asks forgiveness from his wife again. That's why it's no coincidence that we had Taylor saying to Clough, "Take me back, baby. I couldn't do it without you." It's self-consciously about this relationship, so it could take place with any backdrop. It doesn't have to be about futball. It could be big business, or anything. It's about the people and relationships in it.

Q: Where do you start, when you're doing a literary adaptation, like with New Moon or Alice in Wonderland?

Michael: Well, I start at exactly the same place, which is always the story. My first contact with anything I'm going to do is the script, whether it's a script I've been offered, or I've been sent it, or whatever. I sit down and I read it. That first reading of the script is very special to me because I know it's my first point of contact with the story and the world of the piece. I don't read things in bits, and I don't read it whilst I'm doing something else. I have to have full concentration. I read it because, if I end up doing this film, that first reading, the impressions I get, the connections I make and how it sparks my imagination, will fuel everything I do for the whole rest of it. It's always that first contact with it, so that's a very special moment for me and that doesn't matter whether it's based on real events or not, whether it's New Moon or anything.

That's the world. That's the beginning point. And then, it's just about letting your imagination go. I look for clues. Any script is like a whodunit. The writer has certain intentions, whether they're conscious or unconscious, and they come out and are expressed in the script.

So, for instance, when I was doing New Moon, it wasn't just the script, it was the book as well. I used to have the book with me every day on the set, all the time. I'd re-read it and re-read it and re-read it. It's not like I had to read the whole book, because Aro's bits are not as much, but nevertheless, I try and immerse myself in the world of the piece, whatever the piece is.

So, if it's Brian Clough's life, then I immerse myself in Brian Clough's life. If it's New Moon, then I immerse myself in Stephenie's world, but also the world of vampires, generally. With the Underworld films, I watched everything that ever has been on werewolves, and I read everything. You never know where the one little thing will come from that just sparks your imagination. It doesn't happen all the time, but you never know where that thing's going to come from. It can come from the most unlikely of places, and usually does. It's what The Lord of the Rings is all about. The most important person in the whole The Lord of the Rings story is the one that is over-looked in Tolkien's world. It's the little Hobbit. It's the little unlooked for thing.

I've always found that that's the same with what I do. I might be reading, or there will be a chance remark that someone I'm talking to makes about something, and it sticks with me. When I find my core stuff for research, at the time, I don't know why that's important to me, but I just know there's something about it. Eventually, I'll be doing a scene and maybe the director will say, "At this point, could you do something here?," and suddenly something will occur to me from the research. Which means you have to do loads of it, even though you might end up using just a tiny amount of it, but you never know where that stuff will come from.

That was the same for New Moon. Weirdly, I found myself on the set and I suddenly heard the voice of the Blue Meanie in Yellow Submarine. There's a thing that Stephenie writes in the book that his voice was like feathers, and just suddenly I heard this voice that really disturbed me when I was a kid. It was very gentle and soft, but there was something very scary about it. So, for little things like that, you never know where it's going to come from.

Q: And, for Alice, you're an actual rabbit?

Michael: What a transformation. It's amazing! I really can play anything.

Q: What were your favorite things about filming New Moon in Italy?

Michael: I would love to share my favorite experiences about Italy. Unfortunately, I can't because I didn't shoot any of it in Italy. The problem with doing interiors is that interiors can be filmed anywhere. So, next time, I'll have it in my contract that I have to do at least one exterior, in any film I do. My favorite experience about Italy was getting a text from Chris Weitz saying, "It's lovely here, isn't it?"

Q: What was it like being one of the older cast members?

Michael: I think it's a good job that I was playing a millennia-old vampire because that's exactly how it felt to be on a set with people as beautiful as Robert [Pattinson], Kristen [Stewart] and Ashley [Greene], and all that lot. I felt like the old, decrepit uncle who's just hanging around, trying to get in with the cool kids. But, that helped with the character, so it was fun.

Q: Is Tron Legacy all interior as well?
Michael: It is, yeah, because it's all inside the computer world. But, that was amazing. They're amazing sets. I think that's going to look phenomenal.

Q: Will you do Underworld 4?

Michael: I don't know if there is going to be an Underworld 4. I'm not sure. I've heard rumor of it, but nobody has actually spoken to me about it, so I don't know. Maybe it is going to take place without me. I'm not sure, but if I hear anything, you'll be the first to know.

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