Jeremy Irvine On The Railway Man, Colin Firth by Uinterview

Jeremy Irvine, who first became known to American audiences after starring in Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-nominated War Horse, really took method acting to a new level for his new film The Railway Man in which he plays a World War II soldier who was captured and tortured by the Japanese.

Irvine On Waterboarding

Fully committing to his role, Irvine volunteered to actually experience waterboarding for one of his torture scenes. “I was quite keen — I really didn’t want me to imagining things. I wanted it to be as real as possible,” Irvine told Uinterview. “I mean, yes, I could stop at anytime and that’s the real torture not being able to stop. There’s one shot in the movie where I let it carry on just a second too long, and you have this one flash of realism, and I think that’s real important to the film.

“You know, it was described to me, before I did it as being like drowning on dry land. I think the reality of that is one hundred times worse,” the actor added. “You hear about people only being able to last eight seconds, and you think, ‘What could be so awful that you could only last eight seconds?’ And as soon as you experience it, you realize why. … I think it’s the most disgusting thing you could do to a person.”

Irvine Talks Weight-Loss For ‘The Railway Man’

Another thing that Irvine did to ensure that he was getting to the truth of his character was to lose weight. All told, the 23-year-old actor dropped more than 30 pounds.

“I’ll be careful about saying actors are ‘suffering for roles’ because at the end of the day we go home we go back to a nice hotel room, but yeah, you know, I lost a lot of weight for the role – about thirty-five pounds or so,” Irvine told Uinterview. “That’s not easy, you know, in terms on how I did that: ultimately through not eating very much.”

In addition to Irvine and Firth, The Railway Man stars Nicole Kidman and Stellan Skarsgård. Jonathan Teplitzky directed the picture from a screenplay by Frank Cottrell Boyce and Andy Paterson, who adapted the film from Eric Lomax’s book.