Before taking on the role of Superman in Man of Steel, Henry Cavill (The Tudors) took on a starring role in Tarsem Singh's 3D action epic, Immortals. Luke Evans, who is currently onscreen in The Three Musketeers, has The Raven coming to theaters in March 2012, and is busy at work on The Hobbit, co-stars as the Greek God, Zeus. Immortals finds Cavill playing Theseus, a peasant chosen by Zeus to save humanity and the Gods from the mad King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke).

Together at the LA press day for the Relativity Media film, Cavill and Evans talked about feeling a mixture of badass, hungry, and sore while making Immortals, how the physical demands informed their performances, Mickey Rourke, and their future projects.

On the physical toll Immortals took on their bodies:

Luke Evans: "I now have a bone that’s raised on my shoulder which I never had before, which is like a scapula or clavicle tear. It’s never gone down. I just have this strange structural skeletal problem now, thanks to Immortals."

Henry Cavill: "Nothing dramatic. I mean, a few stones in my feet, the bottom of my feet, but nothing which put me out of work."

On preparing for Immortals:

Luke Evans: "Well, [there was] a lot of training, a lot of prep before you start something like this because it was physically demanding. There was no faking any of it and they knew that, so we were put through our paces. And Henry, especially, had a huge amount of work."

Henry Cavill: "Yeah, six months of work.

Due to the nature of the training, which was from a very talented martial artist called Roger Yuan, part of the training was about flexibility as well because due to the nature of martial arts, you’re going to need flexibility. With all the fight sequences and everything, it was essential to do all the stretching beforehand. Otherwise you would have ended up pulling stuff and doing damage to muscles. So therefore, during shooting, I was prepared if I did sustain any minor injuries, they healed quickly. And I did not sustain any major injuries, for the official answer."

On how the physical discipline informed their performances:

Luke Evans: "I trained for seven weeks and I had to do it in fast-paced training. I didn’t have long, and it makes you stand differently. You look yourself in the mirror and you look different. I saw my body change in seven weeks. It does definitely do something to inform your character in a sort of subliminal way. It definitely had an effect for me."

Henry Cavill: "Yeah, it’s like wearing a permanent costume. No, really, before work when you look in the mirror, or even before looking in the mirror you do feel different. A part of the character is more expressive in you and so when you’re in that kind of shape, I essentially was wearing my costume because I barely had a costume. Yeah, it certainly does help."

On making kicking people's butts look totally effortless:

Henry Cavill: "I think, like anything which involves fighting, it’s not the actual fight which is the hard work. It’s all the prep that goes into it. Throughout history, there are stories of epic battles where men have dug very deeply and women have dug very deeply into their willpower to continue fighting. But the only reason why they’re there in the first place is the years of training to get to that place and to be told a story about."

Luke Evans: "And Theseus was trained since a child by old man Zeus. So he sort of has it all there. He has all the capabilities because he has been trained since a child. So when the button is pushed, he just gets up and does it. It’s all there waiting to be used."

Henry Cavill: "Anything physical, it’s all about the prep anyway. You may see the guy in the UFC ring fighting and it may seem effortless, his abilities, his kicks, his punches, whatever, but it’s actually the years of training beforehand where the real work is."

On being convinced to buy into Tarsem Singh's vision for the film:

Luke Evans: "He’s a good salesman. A fantastic salesman."

Henry Cavill: "He had his visuals all set. He had his passion."

Luke Evans: "And a checkbook."

Henry Cavill: "He basically had an idea of what he wanted and that, in itself, when you walk into a room and you have a director who’s actually genuinely in charge of what he wants, you feel safe. You think, 'Okay, great, I want to be a part of this because I know no matter what, I’m going to get to do my bit, and you’re going to do your bit and we’re going to work together.' As opposed to it being, 'Well, we don’t really know what we’re doing but it’s kind of like this and therefore you’ll fit in here somewhere but we might change a lot of stuff up.'"

Luke Evans: "I think in a movie like this, on paper it can sometimes be a little bit too much to swallow. You’re thinking, 'Wow.' Then like Henry said, you meet Tarsem and he has all the answers. For me, when he told me that he wanted me to play Zeus, I was like, 'That’s always been played by an old man, like Laurence Olivier or Liam Neeson.' He convinced me. He said, 'No, you can do this. This is a new take.' And you just go, 'Okay, I surrender. I’ll follow you and you’ll lead me.' That’s what we had to do in this film."

On changes to the script during the shoot:

Henry Cavill: "There were a lot of changes, yeah, and I think as Luke said earlier on today, it was an organic process. That in itself is the nature of these things. When you’re dealing with creative minds, it should be organic and it should have the opportunity to evolve as necessary. Working with someone like Tarsem and other actors like Luke, it makes it a wonderful process and exciting and interesting."

Luke Evans: "He was very open to the dialogue. There was always a constant dialogue between the actor and the director. He was open to that. He wanted us to feel natural in what we were delivering off the page and if it didn’t sound right, or if there were certain words we wanted to change, he was actually happy for us to do that."

On interpreting myths and playing archetypal characters:

Luke Evans: "It's just a role at the end of the day. It's what we do for a living. When you see it on the screen, you're like, 'Wow,' you're overwhelmed by the role that you've played. But at the end of the day, it's a role and you approach it as a new challenge, as a new role."

Henry Cavill: "You can't look at it from the external viewpoint because it can be crushing."
Luke Evans: "Daunting, as well."
Henry Cavill: "You've got to go, 'Okay, I'm playing a role.' And if you approach it any differently from playing any other role -- and I'm talking from the place of we approach any role with the same kind of dedication no matter what -- if you approach it any differently than any other role, then you're not going to do a good enough job. Because you'll be worried about what everyone is thinking about everything, as opposed to just acting - which is what it is."

On what they'll take away from their Immortals experience:

Luke Evans: "A few things. One of them is a great friendship. That was a fantastic gift that I wasn't expecting and we've remained friends since. Working with Tarsem is really special. The guy is a wonderful human being and invests a lot of energy and passion both off-screen and on-screen. He's just a really great person, so that was a wonderful thing to get in touch with him too."

Henry Cavill: "Yeah, friendship and any experience on an acting job is good experience because you can take it to the next one. The physical experience was obviously wonderful because it's prepped me for this physical experience. Which I've learned that when you go to this kind of level, it's no longer about the physical, it's more about the mental. It's about the will power to push yourself into that very dark place. You're standing next to the precipice and you've got that weight on your shoulders and you're only halfway through the workout and you need to push yourself off and just go into that big f**k-off black hole and keep on pushing, and Immortals prepped me for that emotionally and mentally in the physical sense - if that makes sense. So, I'm very grateful for that. But besides that, friendship, acting experience and great working with Tarsem."

On working with Mickey Rourke:

Henry Cavill: "Working with any actor that has that kind of experience is good because you can learn as much as you possibly can from him. ...I learned that there's a certain gravitas you can have by doing the smallest things, and things you do in your everyday life you often don't do when you're acting because you're concentrating so hard on doing something that you're actually not doing the natural things. Mickey is pretty good at that."

On their acting styles and how they prepare for roles:

Luke Evans: "Learn the lines for a start. Get off the page, that's the first thing. Then it's an organic experience, isn't it? You're working with a director who hopefully has plenty to say about the role that you're going to play. So you get that information and then create your own back-story and work out the journey that your character is going to go on. I mean, when I played Zeus I was playing a father - a father, a God who was thousands of years old, a king. So I just channeled my granddad and a few older gentlemen that I know and respect and sort of used those things. I think you always pull things from life, and it's good to come from a personal point of view when you take on a role. I think it makes the character way more interesting and believable if you do that."

Henry Cavill: "True. A lot of it is very instinctual as well. So it's like asking a golf player, 'So what do you do when you swing a club?' A lot of it happens as it happens in the moment and as you're doing it and if someone is saying, 'So, what choices did you make during that take?' You wouldn't be able to answer the question. You've got to look back and say, 'Oh, yeah, I see what I did there.' You see it on the monitor. 'I did that, and I did this.' But, as I say, it's instinctual. There is a certain amount of prep involved with a character which is far from one's own personality and character, but otherwise, you go with what you're feeling. Because you can often trust that in the moment."

On handling the transition from working actors to being stars of films that have such intense curiosity and excitement around them:

Henry Cavill: "We're still working actors."

Luke Evans: "We're still the same people."

Henry Cavill: "Is it any different? No. There is no difference; you're still doing a job. You're turning up to work, it's still a horrible time in the morning, it's dark when you turn up to work, it's dark when you leave work and you're tired and you're hungry. It's like any job."

Luke Evans: "It's a great job, but it's a job."

Henry Cavill: "The fact that there is more public attention towards them certainly doesn't make a difference. There might be more money in the job and so therefore there are a few more luxuries here and there, which does make a difference. It's nice when you turn up and you've got a proper trailer, as opposed to a sort of small, very cold box to get dressed in. But it's still a job; you're still doing the acting stuff. Just because it's bigger doesn't make it any different."

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Immortals hits theaters on November 11, 2011.