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I think in this movie, every time I see his work, I'm blown away by it because he, to me, he really embodied the character so powerfully and so real, so truthfully to me.

In a lot of ways, the make-up was the character.

I thought he was an interesting central figure, central character, one who is definitely not your typical central character figure in a film, who's easy to like. He's not easy to like. It forces you to involve yourself with what's going on.

He was so excited. He cut out pictures of these landscapes and neighborhoods and kind of really tried to give you a feel of the movie. It was kind of cute but at the same time it really showed his enthusiasm for it.

So I sat down with him and portrayed more the side of the character he needed to see. Which is what I do when I go in for an interview for a part I like. As much as you think you're dealing with creative people, they see you for what your image is out there.

Sometimes you need to put your own characteristics into the actor, and you take different things from the character that you admire - sometimes you can't see the boundaries anymore.

I guess Species was a movie made for me and hence I bagged the role. In fact even when acting, I never thought the outcome would be so good which I think it was! The entire role was a challenge. I was to be this strange yet sexy thing which was challenging!

That was one of the things that interested me about the character. He doesn't want to be a hero, and has no real desire to save the earth or discover aliens. He's sniffing around looking to see what will fall in his lap.

We felt we had to know something of his back story. I don't think people in the cinema would just accept that he's there. I think we had to learn how he (got there).