I had the training at drama school where I studied Shakespeare and Brecht and Chekov and all these period historical playwrights and I think that I responded to the material.

I wondered how they would top the Pirates and skeletons and moonlight, because that's a pretty cool concept.

I got to work with one of my heroes, Johnny Depp, and to see how he goes about business, which was really inspiring for me at this stage in my career.

I came back out here from England and I was there for a while and it was beautiful and it is just great to see London going from Spring to Summer and Autumn.

Yeah, I mean the material, directors, the other cast, and if you think you can do something with the character then you do it and go from there. I am looking forward to doing some smaller movies.

I remember one time that I was filming a scene in whych my character rides through Troy on a chariot. I just looked around at this incredible set thinking 'This is the life'.

I'm trying to mix the cool, independent stuff with the big stuff, but it's been difficult finding the right roles. It's been an interesting ride as far as my career pendulum is concerned.

You don't improvise with a Cameron Crowe script.

I'm quite sensitive to women. I saw how my sister got treated by boyfriends. I read this thing that said when you are in a relationship with a woman, imagine how you would feel if you were her father. That's been my approach, for the most part.

I have played a boxer, a cowboy, a knight, a prince, an elf and a pirate. I am so glad to have done all of that already.

I try to take the time to appreciate and I certainly do appreciate and I do feel proud but that is probably one of the things I need to work on, building a bit of time for myself.

A friend told me that teenage girls are always looking for someone to pin their dreams on. That doesn't make it any less weird though.

Someone tried to save my soul in a gas station.

Although it is a fantasy film, it's as real as it can be. You have to imagine that an audience will buy their ticket to a cinema and get on a first-class flight and journey to Middle Earth.

Lord of the Rings was my first experience making movies and at the time, I had no ideas how movies were done. I thought that's the way they're done, so in a way, I had nothing to compare it to.

A big part of what I wanted to do with this character was go from when I was a boy and try and develop into a man, really try and play him as a man who is on this search, on a journey of personal, spiritual, political, social discovery.

People come into your life and people leave it... you just have to trust that life has a road mapped out for you.

I'm still at the beginning of my career. It's all a little new, and I'm still learning as I go.

When everyone around you is doing all this incredible pirate acting and you're having to sort of play the straight guy and move the story forward, you kind of want to be doing some of that pirate ripping it up stuff, but in truth, to be a part of that project is what I love.

My whole career has been fulfilling my childhood fantasies, playing characters that are larger than life, getting to play a knight, an elf, a prince, and a soldier.

I got to dress up in funny clothes and run around New Zealand with a bow and arrow for 18 months, how bad could that be?

I know you can be up one minute and drop the next, so I'm trying to maintain a steady course so I can have some longevity.

I'm always amazed at anyone's interest in what I have to say.

I don't do a film unless it has a sword in it. And if it doesn't have a sword in it, I insist that they have one in the same room to keep me comfortable.

Failure is simply the non-presence of success. But a fiasco is a disaster of mythic proportions.

I am a hopeless romantic and I love to spoil my girlfriends.

When I was nine, I had this girlfriend and we used to have running races in the park. I wanted to be like Superman and fly in and rescue her.

Obviously I always wanted to do a contemporary piece.

I missed my home - like the physicality of my home, I missed my friends and my family mostly and just hanging out and being in your home country - culturally it feels right and that is what I miss.

Until this movie I have played a boxer, a cowboy, a knight, a prince, an elf and a pirate. I am so glad to have done all of that already, and am ready for this phase of my career.

I crave working on those small independent movies because I love going to see those myself.

When you start falling for somebody and you can't stop thinking about when you're going to see them again, I love that. Women are beautiful. They deserve to be cherished and respected.

I had studied theater for three years in London when someone suggested me for the role.

Movies like that aren't about the visual effects and explosions. They're human stories about family, about life, about death.

The process of making a movie is what I love. I thrive on that. It's an exciting miracle, a mad adventure. I love being part of it.

Vig used to call me 'Elf boy', and I'd call him 'filthy human'. As an Elf, I never got a scratch on me, never got dirty. And Vig would come out with blood and sweat all over him. And he'd say to me, 'Oh, go manicure your nails.'

I had the training at drama school where I studied Shakespeare and Brecht and Chekov and all these period historical playwrights and I think that I responded to the material.

The role of an actor is to make every character believable.

I think it's sort of a rite of passage for a British actor to try and get the American accent and have a good crack at doing that.

I'm so happy to have been a part of that process and I would go straight back into the desert in a ton of chain mail for Ridley any day of the week. He's an amazing director and I can't wait to see the long version.

The truth is - I found myself doing these huge action-adventure movies, and um, and which are cool man. And I really love doing them. And thankfully I haven't had too much dialogue, because if I had I would have really made a mess of it. You know what I mean?

There's a difference between a failure and a fiasco... a fiasco is a disaster of mythic proportions.

Elves are like trees, grounded and focused from the trunk down but graceful and agile on top.

I feel really privileged to be an actor, to be paid to do something I love.

I think a film set is a quite controlled environment and you feel like you can trust them and it is going to be a safe place to work, but I really don't think about it.

Elves have this superhuman strength, yet they're so graceful. Tolkien created them to be angelic spirits, but I also saw Legolas as something out of the Seven Samurai.

I've done movies with a sword before. But I haven't really been given the full responsibility of something like a Ridley Scott film.

If life isn't about human beings and living in harmony, then I don't know what it's about.

Whatever happens in life is fine - just trust in that.