FK: What was it like shooting with director Francis Lawrence?
SC: Amazing, he grabbed the bull by the horns and wrestled it to the ground, I don’t think he ever shot anything quite like this with people like me and Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson. I mean the three of us were quite mischievous through the filming… but he was amazing, he was able to have the right balance between fun and professionalism. Visually he’s super talented, I think he’s the best director I’ve worked with so far. I don’t mean any offence to the others but the fact that The Hunger Games is such a huge franchise and he still managed to maintain a family community feel amongst the cast and crew, he made it feel like it was a small independent movie with no money.

FK: And it was his first time working on the franchise as well, wasn’t it?
SC: Yes, he sat me down at the very beginning of the filming process and said, “Look, if you have any doubts or any questions, or anything you need, I am equally new to this so we can be new together.”

FK: How did it feel going into a movie where everybody already knew each other?
SC: As intimidating as it was going in to play Finnick, it was probably just as intimidating to enter a room full of people that knew each other. I was so nervous and anxious, I didn’t know how I was going to fit in, I was the only English guy and I wasn’t Jen and Josh’s age, but then I wasn’t Woody Harrelson’s age either so I thought, “Where do I slot in here?” It’s kind of good that I’m quite immature and I have a very similar sense of humour to Jen and Josh, so immediately we got on like a house on fire, they took away a lot of that anxiety.

FK: When do you start shooting the next one?
SC: Soon, very very soon, so the diet and everything has already started! I’ve got a long way to go to get back to where I was.

FK: Yeah I heard about the chicken and asparagus…
SC: Chicken and asparagus! Yeah three months, I let myself off the last two weeks, because I was like, “Well I don’t need to take my top off any more, it’s nearly Christmas, why not?”

FK: What was the first thing you ate after?
SC: I think it was Christmas dinner, I literally got back to London on the 24th December, drove to my parents’ house, I remember saving myself until then and I was like, “I just want to literally demolish my mum’s home cooked Christmas dinner!”

FK: Were you strict with the diet or did you have a sneaky Mars bar?
SC: No, I was ridiculously strict, I have never been strict before. I never stuck to a diet for more than two weeks – that’s pushing it a bit, maybe about three days. But when I was in Atlanta shooting I didn’t have any distractions. Usually my friends and my family are the worst culprits for going, “Ah come on, don’t worry about it, have a bit of ice cream,” but when I was out there I was literally on my own, and as much as I got to know the other guys they had no idea how strict I was.

FK: Were you swimming a lot as your character is from a water district?
SC: I think having read the book I expected to do a lot more than I did. I was joking with the director actually saying that no one actually asked me if I could swim until the day I got into the water for the first time, and that was three months into filming. So I had shot the majority of my stuff, and then they were like, “Oh yeah, by the way, can you swim because if you can’t this is kind of redundant.” Luckily I can, but open water kind freaks me out somewhat. I got stung by a jellyfish when I was a lot younger, I think there’s so much about the ocean that we don’t know.

FK: If you could go down in a bubble would you want to go exploring in the ocean?
SC: No. I don’t know, it would freak me out. I kind suffer from claustrophobia as well… [laughs] I’m a mess! Argh, no, I couldn’t do it.

FK: Do you eat seafood?
SC: I do, I didn’t for years, basically fish fingers made me sick. I sound like some nervous wreck! You know how kids get bugs? I basically had fish fingers once, which isn’t really proper fish I’m sure, but it made me sick and from that day, I must have been about six or something. I didn’t eat fish until I met my wife about three years ago. We went out for sushi and I was too afraid to tell her. You know when you’re trying to impress somebody? Then I was like, “Oh my god, this is really meaty!”

FK: So you ate it?
SC: Yeah, absolutely. I eat fish now but I prefer meat.

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