Do you think he was channelling his inner angst in Edge of Darkness?
No, I think he’s just an excellent actor. Mel never stopped working [during his off-screen difficulties]: he was directing in all the years that he wasn’t acting. He’s a very intelligent man. I was talking to him about the way he made Apocalypto [2006] and you could just tell that the man knows how to structure movies. As for demons, I guess we’ve all got a few demons. Not a troubled character, then? No, I don’t think so, not really. Who knows what people are like when they go home? All I can say about Mel is that it was an absolute privilege to work with him. Edge of Darkness is a pretty dark story: business is corrupt, politics is corrupt, lots of people get killed. How do you deal with that sort of material? Do you come away from it feeling depressed? Well, I think we already know that the world is like that. But I have my own kind of little kingdom of friends and we all look after one another, because no one else out there is going look after you; you’ve got to go and do it for you
