The Verge: Nicholas Hoult

Tom also shot you for the cover of Out magazine. Is Tom the photographer much different than Tom the director?

Slightly. They're similar, but he may feel more comfortable as a photographer -- not to say that he feels uncomfortable as a director, but he's been doing photography for so long and understands it very clearly. As a director, with us as actors, he was very freeing. He didn't waylay us with too much direction where we felt like we couldn't play with our characters and create something that was alive. With a photoshoot, obviously, it's very different: You haven't got a character to play, nor lines of dialogue.

In a photoshoot like that one, and to a certain extent in A Single Man, you're objectified somewhat. Are you comfortable with that kind of attention?

I think it's something that Colin played very well within his conception of the character, whereby it doesn't feel too uncomfortable, really. Obviously, there's a large age gap between our characters, but Colin plays it in a way where it doesn't feel that odd. Kenny's quite a predator as well, and wise beyond his years. He feels that people his age don't understand him, and it's George who he has a connection with.

I'm sure you've heard that MTV is developing an American version of Skins. What did you think when you heard that announcement?

I think it's fantastic, it just depends on how it works out. The great thing about Skins is that they got actors who were the right age to play the characters, and there was something fresh and new. Hopefully, that's something MTV will create with their version of the show, where it doesn't get sucked into being one of the many young adult dramas that are already on American TV.

The writers for the UK version were exceptionally young, weren't they?

Some of the writers were as young as 18 writing full episodes, which is fantastic. I think that's why it worked so well -- you have a young team of writers who've got their fingers on the pulse and know what's happening. A lot of the time, I'd be reading the scripts going, "Hang on, what does this word mean? What's this new trend?" I didn't try to keep up with what the writers were saying because they were so up to speed on whatever was the cool thing at the time.

You're also in the upcoming remake Clash of the Titans. Who do you play?

I play a character called Eusebius, who's the youngest of Princess Andromeda's personal guards. They go on the mission with Perseus to try to kill the Kraken. It's not a huge character, but it's something I wanted to do to understand how those epic adventure things work. It was a good learning curve, definitely.

What was it like to go from these intimate dramas to a huge effects film like Clash?

Definitely, the scale of it was completely different. To go from a 10-page dialogue scene sitting across from Colin and to have all this dialogue to chew over and mull over, and then have a film like Clash that's much more visual...it's very much about looking the part of a soldier and knowing how to stand with a shield and a sword.

That sounds like fun, though.

Oh, it's something fantastic! I'd stand on set sometimes and think, "This is ridiculous. We're getting paid to fight giant scorpions." It's like what you'd do with friends in the garden when you were seven years old, and somehow, you managed to end up doing it as a job.

[Photo Credit: Angela Weiss/WireImage]

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