Timothy Olyphant in Hitman F. Barraja/Courtesy of 20th Century Fox

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Stylish and cool, Timothy Olyphant (Live Free or Die Hard, HBO's Deadwood) is Agent 47 in Xavier Gens's adaptation of the über-violent video-game franchise Hitman. Born into a secret religious Catholic brotherhood and raised as a killing machine, Agent 47 is dispatched to liquidate the Russian President. When the assignment goes awry, he goes on the run.

How familiar were you with the video game, and what was it about Agent 47 that made you want to take the role?
When the script came, I was totally unfamiliar. They sent some images from the game over with the script so I had visual idea of what the source material was. Then I read the script. I really focused mostly on just that: the script. I read about the game a little bit, about the history of the character.

Agent 47 is a very cool operator yet something of a loner who must remain emotionally detached to do this job. Is it more demanding to play someone buttoned up than boiling over with emotional excess?
It is always sort of the same. I really don't know. I tend to look at every job as more or less the same task. You are trying to come up with very simple actions that define the character. You narrow the playing-room area. I know that after playing a character like this it is much more fun to go and play a character that has a lot more room. [Laughs]. And vice versa.

The character's history is shrouded in mystery. What do you think motivates him to do what he does?
What motivates him as killer? Well, I think that more or less the idea that he was born and bred to be one. It is just who he is. It is the same way [for others]. People are who they are from the get-go.

Timothy Olyphant in Hitman F. Barraja/Courtesy of 20th Century Fox

And his relationship with women is fraught with complications. He refrains from any emotional involvement. This is quite different from other movies in the spy-agent-assassin genre. How did you tap into that?
Grudgingly, I tapped into it grudgingly. I thought: "What if we did it the other way? What if he is a guy that gets laid all the time and we film it?" But Xavier was committed to this idea that we honor the game. I thought it was an interesting aspect to [play], and I thought that his story and his history supported that idea that his job doesn't really allow for it.

Xavier is a pretty young director, what was it like working with him?
Honestly, I was always trying to tell him what to do. "I know you think you want to do it this way but really you want to do it that way." No, he was great. He was very, very thoughtful. He was really aiming high. I really appreciated the fact that while we were making this action genre film, he was looking at it almost as a character-driven film. And it was a lovely experience.

And the locations. Had you been to Istanbul or Sofia, Bulgaria, before?
My wife and I honeymooned in Bulgaria. No, I'm [just kidding]. I had been to Hungary, so I had been to Eastern Europe before, but it was a fascinating place and the people were lovely. Istanbul was unbelievable! What a city! I could go back there again and again. That was a fascinating place. It was a very foreign experience. But yeah, that is one of the perks of the job. You get to go places that you'd never imagine and see a part of the world you hadn't considered before. It was great.

Did it help you get into character to have all your hair shaved off?
No. That was miserable. It came with the job. So I knew it was all coming off. And so you just think to yourself: "Well, thank God it's paying the rent."