GQ Australia

"Ned was a strong fella. Before he was known as an outlaw he was known as a boxer and a hard fighter . . . I think from the start he was somebody not to mess with, he wouldn't back down from any fight and that was like a survival mechanism for him. He also had to be a father to his entire family from an early age once his dad died. He had to grow up fast and there was a lot of his youth spent parenting the family."

"It was such a risk because there are so many different opinions and so many different points of view on what Ned Kelly was about and how he should be played, in order for me to block that out and stay clear and give a consistent performance I had to really find my own opinion of him and give myself 100% to that opinion and just go for it and trust my instincts."

"He's such a myth and legend and we just see him as this (adopts Irish accent) tough f–-in' cop-killer, horse thief, always growly and surly and I just disagreed with that. My goal was to make him a person again. For starters, the toughest guys I've ever met, the best fighters, boxers are usually the loveliest guys because they don't have to be tough. They can walk around with a bit of a smile on their face. So I figured that about Ned, that he could snap at any point but he doesn't have to be tough because he's someone who just is tough."

"On the physical side, it was about finding some really good portraits of him. There's that one very iconic shot of him two days before he's to be hanged. That's where we got his entire look at the end, with the quiff hair and the ZZ Top beard."

"For a man who's going to die within days, his family in jail, 100 of his friends in jail, his brother dead, his whole gang's dead . . . for a man in that position whose world's upside down, he held a lot of dignity and pride in his eyes."

"We had an opportunity to show his human side by putting in the love story and that's because outside the love story and in the movie whenever you see Ned it's like OThey f–-kin' what? They took my family?' And he's fighting for a cause and solving problems. So the only time I could drop his guard and drop his responsibilities and just present him as the boy he was and have him smile and have him be vulnerable and a little nervous was when there was a love involved in his life."

"It's almost like a test run for Australia's film industry in terms of making bigger films, because I think it is the biggest film they've made for a while. I think Gregor made it with that in mind, that it could translate around the world and I hope it does."