Be sure to check out the interview in full over at Collider.com, definitely a must-read.

Charlie, what do you think it is about your character that audiences will be able to identify with?

CHARLIE HUNNAM: I play a guy, called Raleigh, who, in this world that Guillermo has created, was one of the super-soldiers that pilot these giant robots. When you meet me, in the beginning of the story, I’ve suffered a giant loss. Not only has it killed my sense of self-worth, but also my will to fight and keep on going. And then, Rinko [Kikuchi] and Idris [Elba], and a couple other people, bring me out of retirement to try to help with this grand push. I think that journey is a very relatable one. Everybody, at some point in their life, has fallen down and not felt like getting back up, but you have to, no matter how difficult it is. That’s something that’s pretty easily relatable to audiences, I hope. The film is gonna be fucked, if it isn’t.

DEL TORO: When Charlie and Rinko’s characters meet, they’ve both lost a lot in the past. One of the ideas in the script is that two people who are really, really hurt can become one, both metaphorically and in life. When they meet, they’re two empty pieces and connect, almost like a puzzle.

Did you enjoy getting to work with Ron Perlman on this?
HUNNAM: You go through this business and you meet people that you bond with, and you get to go make movies with them. It’s wonderful. What I’ve always dreamt of, in my career, is to have a brotherhood of collaborators, and go in and out of working with them. I’m just starting to get that, and it’s really lovely.

Is there a specific name for these giant robots?
HUNNAM: When I found out the kind of spirit of the Jaeger that [Rinko and I] pilot together, it coincided, coincidentally, with a sub-category of society that I’ve been obsessed with, my whole life. I can’t give it away, but that this is the name of the particular Jaeger and what its spirit was, and I just felt, in a grandiose moment, that it was almost destiny for me to be playing this guy, just because the spirit of this robot is something that I have admired and, at periods of my life, tried to emulate. So, that was a really beautiful coincidence.