The actor, best known for his roles in the big-budget Transformers blockbusters, rom-coms Life As We Know It and New Year’s Eve, and Nicholas Sparks adaptation Safe Haven, can next be seen in the romantic drama The Lost Husband, based on the book of the same name by bestselling author Katherine Center.
He told the PA news agency: “I guess I look for an authenticity about the character, too many times things are written to fit a plot and I feel like the characters need to dictate the plot.
“I love characters that are flawed, I have done enough movies where the characters are still a little bit too perfect and it always bugged me, but you’re starting out, you’ve got to take what you can.
“But at this point in my career, I love the imperfections of characters and trying to figure out their perspective on their world.”
Comparing the different genres of films he has worked on, including his current project in which he plays a gruff goat farm manager in Texas Hill Country, who ends up falling for a young widow, he said: “If I’m going to compare something like Transformers to this, yes Transformers movies are fun to shoot, and you get to do all kinds of things and go to all kinds of cool places and play with all kinds of cool toys, but the character work in something like that is really tough because there is really not time for it.
“It’s really about the action and the robots and you’re kind of a piece of a puzzle and you just have to fit in where you can.
“Something like this (The Lost Husband) really allows the character to breathe and let moments happen and that to me is what is really fun about what I get to do, is finding those moments and making it feel like real life.
“In a big movie like Transformers, oftentimes you don’t get those opportunities, at least I didn’t in them, as much fun as I had making them, it’s just a completely different game.”
The Lost Husband is available for digital download now.
