A great friend of mine said to me the other day that I have a habit of playing men imprisoned by their own psyche. I think everybody's imprisoned by their own psyche and that's the thing that interests me," says Brian Cox on his tendency to play characters that are troubled, flawed, off kilter or all three.

The 62-year-old Scottish actor (he now has 'Sir' in front of his name) was the original Hannibal Lecter in 1986's Manhunter and in 1991 he played the part of Owen Benjamin in the ground-breaking BBC production of The Lost Language of Cranes, as a closeted gay father to a gay son. More recently, he's veered towards the villainous, such as his turn as Agamemnon in Troy. He looks and sounds like a Celtic Marlon Brando as he sits at a booth in Dublin's Shelbourne Hotel sipping sparkling water -- world-weary and gruff but charming and friendly nonetheless.

Speaking of Brando, Cox tells a story about why he wanted to become an actor.

"I realised early on that my family was in deep s**t; both my mother and father were very unhappy and my father subsequently died and my mother was very thwarted. And I thought, I'm going to have to be a performer, somehow.

"I read this story about Marlon Brando performing for his mum, because his mum was drunk by 10 o'clock in the morning, and he used to do these things for his mother and it's why he came to hate acting, because he had to act when he was a kid in order to cheer his mum up and keep his mum sweet. But for me, it was the opposite, it was the thing that saved me from my conditions and like Frank (his character in the forthcoming movie The Escapist), it was my sanctuary, so I'm grateful. There was never any question; that was always what I wanted to do."

So, it doesn't take a psychologist to work out that that's why he's drawn to difficult, interesting characters. In The Escapist, he plays Frank Perry, a lifer, who is 13 years into his prison sentence. He's institutionalised but his estranged daughter is in hospital, close to death. Frank is desperate to make his peace with her, so he hatches a plan to break out and escape.

"It subverts the genre, in a way. It's done a whole different thing to it -- all prison movies have a redemptive thing, but it's the existential nature that realities are confused. All of that jumbles the audience up -- it disorientates, which I think is a brave and healthy thing to do in the cinema."

The film has a twist, which Cox reckons is good for audiences.

"You disorientate in order to reorientate people because too often audiences can predict everything and they sit there and all the machinery and technology is thrown at them. And nothing is required back -- that's the problem with those big blockbusters. In this film, you require participation; they have to participate whether they like it or not. Their faces are rubbed in it and I love that."

The Escapist was filmed partly in Kilmainham Gaol, partly in a studio in Dublin and partly in London, and also features Joseph Fiennes, Liam Cunningham and Brazilian actor Seu Jorge of City of God fame. But it's Cox's show -- its director and co-screenwriter Rupert Wyatt developed the project with Cox specifically in mind, which sounds like every actor's dream. "You can't look a gift horse in the mouth!" is Cox's reaction to that.

And about Kilmainham -- what was it like and is it true that it's haunted?

"It's amazing, really amazing." And haunted? "Haunted, cold, the noise of the ghosts is clamorous. It's the saddest and loneliest place -- when you go to where they executed the patriots, that's desperately sad and tragic. You do get a sense, with all these kids buried in the exercise yard, there's so much clamorous activity; it's like an echo chamber, almost. The voices down the cells, it's almost like a cacophony, really."

A fitting setting for a man who's imprisoned both literally and mentally. But is Frank imprisoned in the past, because he's been there for so long?

"No, I think he's in no-man's land," says Cox. "I think the prison is his sanctuary in a sense. He's created this wonderful place -- it's hellish -- but he knows how to exist within that, he's worked it out how he can get by."

Is that what hell is like? Cox gives the question the same careful consideration he gives the rest, but more so.

"I think hell is that but also with sitting on a bed of nails at the same time. And I do think that Frank has been in a privileged position in one sense.

Years and years ago, I remember going into hospital and I remember being in a ward and I loved it. It was so surprising to me; I loved the fact that I was being taken care of; I loved the fact that I was having my meals at a regular interval; I loved the fact that my time was being organised on my behalf. I didn't have to do anything.

"And in a sense, when you keep yourself in prison, all that gets put away and you don't have any problems with it. But of course in order to redeem yourself, the fates say that you have to go out there and transcend your state. And that's why the existential/metaphysical nature of The Escapist is very important, because that's the thing that people recognise. That's the thing -- we're all prisoners of our own state and we quite like it a lot of the time. Unfortunately, the moral and the Celtic thing, and it is a Celtic thing, is that 'I have to be redeemed' and 'I have to make my life have some value'." And, lucky for us, acting was Brian Cox's redemption.

The Escapist opens tomorrow

- Claire Coughlan