Ancient mythology? It's all Greek to Sam Worthington, reports Russell Baillie of The New Zealand Herald.
Sam Worthington may be playing Greek demigod Perseus in Clash of the Titans - the latest boulder of a seeming pop culture avalanche from the slopes of Mt Olympus - but don't expect the Australian Avatar star to defend Titans for being faithful to the ancient legend.
"That's what we wanted to do - keep it buoyant and fresh. It's me in a dress with a rubber sword killing monsters. It's a lot of fun. The audience should not take it too seriously, get their 16 bucks worth and have a great ride."
It's a remake of the 1981 film of the same name. This one is by Louis Leterrier, the French director of 2008's The Incredible Hulk as well as the adrenalised action flicks Transporter and Transporter 2.
"He knows how to throw a camera around," Worthington says of his director. "Most big movies like to have action set pieces, but Louis doesn't work that way. He doesn't let up, he goes from one battle to another battle to another battle and all through that comes the emotion. That is what Louis is good at, keeping the train running."
The film was mainly shot in British studios, the Canary Islands and - to Worthington's dismay - an old Welsh slate quarry.
"That sucked. I hated that. The rain goes up in that country. And slate is meant to have a negative impact as a mineral. So it was like the most depressing suicidal time in my life. It's meant to be the entrance to the underworld. It sure as hell is, I tell ya."
The original film marked the end of an era - it was the final visual-effects outing by the master of stop-motion creatures, Ray Harryhausen.
Monsters like the Kraken aside, it also had quite a human cast - Laurence Olivier as Zeus, Maggie Smith as Thetis, Ursula Andress as Aphrodite and a pre-LA Law Harry Hamlin as Perseus.
It proved a box-office hit if not exactly an enduring classic, like, say, Harryhausen's Jason and the Argonauts . . .
"But that's the thing," Worthington says. "That is so good, why remake it? That is the thing about remakes: if the old one stands up, don't remake it.
"I think this one, with the visual effects we have nowadays, is the perfect one to pick . . ."
Well, Worthington effectively replaced Arnold Schwarzenegger in last year's Terminator Salvation.
Now he's stepping into Hamlin's sandals, though without his haircut of the gods - the mullet.
"Yeah, '80s heroes watch out . . . We tried to distance ourselves from the original in any subtle way we could and if I had long, flowing locks - and there are a lot of sword and sandal epics where everyone has long flowing locks - I just wanted to have a different, modern look."
A son of Zeus but raised as a mortal man, the Perseus of the film is compelled to head into the underworld to defeat Hades, who has designs on a takeover of Mt Olympia which would make things very bad for mankind.
Perseus' inner conflict about his demigod status is another of the ways the new film differs from the original, and Worthington thinks it sends a better message to its young audience, like his 9-year-old nephew, Ridley.
"If you look at the original, some of the themes in it are a bit odd. This whole thing of 'you can do anything if you accept being a god' - I thought was a bit bad for my nephew. He can only succeed if he's part-god?
"So we really hammered home this thing that he is a man and he can do anything he wants as a man if he looks deep inside and has the help of other strong-willed men. I thought 'he's a 9-year-old kid. That's a good message'."
The pre-teens have already had a recent Greek mythology lesson of sorts with the Perseus-themed Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief.
Gamers have had the Perseus-like Kratos swinging his way through the God of War series in the past five years, with the final instalment due for release just as Titans hits the screen (the movie will have its own game).
There's been plenty more ancient Greece - or Rome, or Sparta - coming to the small and big screen in the past three years.
The 2007 success of Spartan war film 300 - which has a prequel in the works - surely begat Clash of the Titans as well as the New Zealand-filmed X-rated television series Spartacus: Blood and Sand, starring Lucy Lawless.
Frank Miller, the creator of the graphic novel on which 300 was closely based, told the Los Angeles Times he wasn't surprised by the revival in interest.
"Every generation returns to ancient Greece because, well, the stories are so damn good."
"The fact and the myth are inseparable and, believe me, when you go sailing for a while in the Aegean Sea, you start believing in Poseidon."
Worthington thinks his Perseus will have it all over Percy.
"That was good and tame, but we are taking on scorpions the size of dump trucks. It's a big bunch of boys. We are a boisterous bunch - how many more Bs can I put into that [expletive] sentence?" he says laughing.
How about another letter? Now he's been in two does he prefer acting in 3-D or 2-D?
"Aah, any D. 3-D, 2-D, DVD. It doesn't matter. If the story holds up, none of those things matter."
After Avatar and Terminator Salvation, this is Worthington's first movie without a James Cameron connection and the first to test his new-found marquee value.
It also means he's been in three major blockbusters in less than a year.
"I don't want to oversaturate the market and have people get sick of me, but people normally work 11 to 12 months of the year anyway on normal jobs, so why shouldn't I? That gives you a body of work and it's all about learning."
Even if the main thing he picked up from Titans was how to swing a sword and run in sandals - though not the winged ones of myth.
"We didn't use the winged sandals. We took a few liberties. We've got sandals, but they are more Nikes. They are like Nikes with painted toes on them. From a distance it made it look like I had very long toes. But it meant I could run away from Medusa. It's pretty hard to do with sandals on, man.
"I said give me a pair of Nikes. Nike is a Greek god, anyway."
And Worthington laughs that being a Sydneysider helped his interpretation of a Greek hero.
"I have a Greek girlfriend. That's about as close as I get. But there is a place here called Marrickville [the centre of Sydney's Hellenic community]. My Perseus is Greek via Marrickville."
Lowdown
Who: Sam Worthington, rollercoaster-riding Australian star who appeared in last year's Avatar and Terminator Salvation.
What: Clash of the Titans, also starring Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes.
When: On now.
