A scene from Hitman Rico Torres/Courtesy of 20th Century Fox

Agent 47's mission is further complicated when Dougray Scott (Ever After; Mission: Impossible II) as Interpol agent Mike Whittier turns up in St. Petersburg. Whittier has been hot on Agent 47's heels for years and is finally closing in on his quarry.

To what degree do you think you can identify with Mike Whittier as someone who is hell bent on pursuing someone or something regardless of the costs?
I think I am quite obsessive myself and I think I can be very bloody-minded and dogged in my pursuance of whatever I try to achieve in my own life, whether in my profession or in golf or in my relationships with many people in my own life. I am quite determined as a human being. So in that respect I can relate to his obsession and all the other stuff you have to fill in yourself, with conversations with people and your memories and people in your life. You dredge up any obsessions that you have had in you life, and you try and connect it and humanize it. And try to make it attractive to an audience. And make it recognizable to an audience as well. That is what an actor's job is.

There is something about the hunter and the hunted being interlocked for so long that they reach a level of admiration and respect for each other. Do you think that applies at all here?
Yeah. Especially in the scenes where [Agent 47] actually turns, and they sort of get together, and there is a sort of a strange familiarity about the other person that they both recognize. From my point of view there is a great deal of admiration — as much as he is trying to pursue him and capture him and put him away, which is the right thing from his point of view to do, still there is the sense that he almost doesn't want it to go away. He wants it to occupy his life for as long as possible. Because once that has gone, what is there? Is there emptiness? Is there anything else to go on to? Is there something particular about him that makes sense of his life as a cop? So I think there is a sense of regret when one feels that it might end but one never knows what is going to happen after that. Is he going to start it up all over again? We just don't know.

What would you regard as the most challenging part of the role for you?
The running. [Laughs]. There is a physical aspect. I have done action films before. And it is always the same because they say: "Okay. Let's do another one!" and you are doing like 40 takes, running along a corridor, which maybe on screen doesn't look very long because of the lenses that they use but let me tell you it is like a good thirty yards that you have to run full pelt at, and both me ands Tim were feeling it in our legs. I will tell you that. The first few you feel like you are still fast and it's fantastic and then after the 30th take, you're dying. You are like: "No! Stop! No more." So that was quite challenging, especially running outside on cobblestones that have been wetted down.

Was there anything different about being on this set and working with Xavier Gens?
He is like a baby. I mean, he is so young! He said to me the first week: "I have worked with you." And I said: "Did you? On what?" And he said: "I was a driver on Ever After," which was like 8 years ago, and I thought: "Hell, you must have been like 15 to have been a driver on that film." But he was great. He is an incredibly passionate filmmaker. He has that youthful enthusiasm which hasn't been sullied by the industry, because you kind of get very cynical about making movies in this industry, but he is certainly not that. He was as fresh as a daisy every single day. He had a great energy and really wanted to bring his vision to it. I had seen Frontier(s), which was very violent but visually stunning.