(gentle piano music) - Well, it's a little daunting at first to play a guy who's constantly referred to as being the toughest, strongest man in the world.
He's a superhero, (Valjean groaning) and you sort of look at your puny muscles and go, is anyone gonna believe this?
So, I did quite a bit of boxing training beforehand and that sort of thing, and then I couldn't believe how big they cast Marius.
He's about 6'2" and I thought how am I gonna carry that guy?
I fortunately managed to find a way of holding him.
You can actually lift almost anybody if you get them in the right position.
The thing I found hard was his feelings of guilt and feelings of unworthiness, and feeling that he belonged in prison for stealing a loaf of bread.
I found that very difficult, too.
And, you know, I'd go well how could you feel guilty?
You'd feel incredibly aggrieved and hard done-by and deeply wronged if you'd been jailed for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread to feed your starving nephews, and so it took me a long time to get my head around the mentality which I think you can get when you're institutionalized or go to jail, whereas you believe you're not worthy of anything more.
I'm a common criminal.
I don't belong in the family of men, Monsieur.
I'm on the outside.
That's a difficult part of Jean Valjean's psychology, and why he submits, constantly surrendering himself again to Javert.
It's this sense of unworthiness that persecution and incarceration can give people, this sense that they don't belong anywhere else.
(gentle piano music)
