TORONTO -- British actor Jack O'Connell, who plays the lead in the upcoming Angelina Jolie-helmed "Unbroken," said the Oscar winner was a "compassionate, reasonable and supportive" director.
"I got the impression that no matter what she's endured on a set, or what she's seen people go through, she gave my challenge a certain amount of respect, where she never (presumed) to know what I was going through," O'Connell said in an interview at the Toronto International Film Festival while promoting another movie, "'71."
"Unbroken" is based on the life of Louis Zamperini, a former Olympian and war hero who survived a prisoner of war camp and went on to forgive those who mistreated him.
"I felt very personally obliged to do not only my best for her, but for Louis," said O'Connell. "She had a relationship with Louis so she was working from the heart too and I think when that's the case you end up digging a lot deeper.
O'Connell called the film the biggest challenge of his life.
"The duration, the level of commitment to the diet, trying to complete working days eating hardly anything. And it got strenuous as well -- Louis was very physical on not that much food so I had to kind of be the same too."
Forging a relationship with the man he was portraying on the big screen also helped, said O'Connell, who met with Zamperini three times before the war hero's death in July at the age of 97.
"Instantly you could tell he was very comfortable around people. He's quite hilarious, and at 96 when I met him, very lucid, very quick witted and sharp," said O'Connell.
The pair went through scrap books, talked about Zamperini's life and also just hung out in a restaurant where O'Connell watched Zamperini charm those around him.
"He's an incredible flirt too, you know," the actor said with a chuckle. "I picked up some pointers from him."
"Unbroken" is expected to open in December.
