Solomon Kane Q&A: James Purefoy

I knew Conan but I wasn’t all that interested – I’m not a big fan of the whole Conan thing.

That’s the kind of fantasy film that I just can’t be arsed with because it looks camp and I don’t believe the world.

But the world we created in Solomon Kane is very real. It’s a mad, dark world and Solomon Kane’s a really cool character.

I was very influenced by Clint Eastwood when I was growing up. I would sit in front of the TV at home in my little village in Somerset wearing a poncho.

I’m not kidding, 12 years old – my mother would give me a cheroot to smoke, which is just appalling.

I just thought he was the coolest person I’d ever seen in my life – I loved his taciturnity, the fact that he was such an enigma as the Man With No Name.

And to my mind, Solomon is the 16th century Man With No Name. He’s grim, taciturn and he doesn’t give much out.

I’ve had so many boring comments that we’re copying Van Helsing and it just makes you want to split your head against a wall at people’s ignorance and stupidity, because obviously Van Helsing ripped off the look of Solomon Kane.

He’s the prototype – Van Helsing is the rip-off.

I’m very good with a sword – there aren’t many of us who can do that. I was fortunate to be taught at drama school by one of the greatest fight choreographers ever, Bill Hobbs, who did The Three Musketeers and The Duellists.

And I did it for three years at the Royal Shakespeare Company. If you do three years of fights every single night, you become pretty handy with a blade.

The Mandy Patinkin-Cary Elwes fight in The Princess Bride is one of the most beautiful pieces of swordplay you can ever imagine.

My favourite swordfighter of all time, though, is Oliver Reed because Ollie looked like he really was trying to kill people in the Musketeer movies.

I asked Bill Hobbs, “How did he do that?” and he said, “Because he /was/ trying to kill people.” The stuntmen wouldn’t fight with him – they had to keep getting new ones to come to the set because he was a vicious, crazed animal. I liked that idea for Solomon – I wanted him to look like he was trying to kill people.

It was the toughest job I’ve ever done. It was very harsh filming conditions in the Czech Republic, minus-10, minus-15 most days, nearly all of it shot outside, and incredibly wet because that bastard Michael [Bassett, director] would never turn the rain machines off.

You’d come off set and your clothes would literally freeze on you so that there were icicles forming. If you sat down for 15 minutes and then tried to get up, you’d fall flat on your face because you were covered in ice.

Sick, injured… but when you sign up for something like this, you know what’s going to happen. It’s not guns and squibs, it’s up close hand-to-hand combat and you get hurt.

I got seven stitches in the top of my head, the cartilage in my knee snapped, I stabbed a stuntman in the face…