Even before I read books, I was looking for a character that could wrestle with a crocodile in the morning and dance with the queen at a ball in the night. That's my general explanation of a Renaissance man.

Tell us about the experience of filming in Morocco.

You dance with the elements there. They have this saying 'Inshaallah' (in God's hand), and it's true. I mean you don't know what is going to happen next. You get up with a beautiful blue sky and you go for your first shot. All of a sudden, you look across the desert and see sandstorm coming and it wipes you off for the rest of the day.

So it was good in a way, and in many situations we were struggling with it. Actually we use some of the stuff of in the film, part of the elements.

I loved working at Morocco.

We came from the desert, which had spread out rooms, and then we were put on this small boat. There were 25 people in it, and we were shoulder to shoulder. The sequence was cool.