Behind the scenes: Geoffrey Rush

I play Harry Pendel, an East End ex-con. He has reinvented himself as a posh Savile Row tailor living in exile in Panama - and he delights in an identity that masks his painful and secret past. He's left poverty behind and revels in his wealth.

Pierce Brosnan is the ruthless British agent Andrew Osnard who knows Harry's past. The story by John Le Carr? is grounded in the spy world - and the fraud your life becomes when you cannot tell anyone who you are. Harold Pinter plays Harry's uncle, Jamie Lee Curtis plays his wife Louisa and Catherine McCormack is Osnard's Embassy squeeze.

I said to director John Boorman that I'd have to learn how to tailor. I hate cut-aways to someone else's hands. In Shine, where I was playing a classical pianist, I learned how to play the piano and we didn't have to cut-away. That sort of stuff also helps you get into the mental state of the character. So I knuckled down and worked with a tailor in Sydney and another in Panama to learn how to chalk and cut up jackets. On the first tailoring demo I was chewing up the cloth and the chalk was going everywhere. Not a jacket you'd want to wear.

I was fortunate that The Tailor Of Panama followed Quills. I like to keep it fresh and live and not peddle the same product all the time. It's like being a repertoire actor in the theatre. I gravitate to roles on the perimeter. I am rarely the hero and I'm certainly not a hero in The Tailor Of Panama. De Sade was as close as I will get to being a romantic lead!