Jamie Bell's Eagle research

Jamie Bell "threw away" much of his research for 'The Eagle'.

The British actor plays Esca, a Scottish slave and a Brigantian Prince, in the forthcoming adventure, which is set in Medieval times and though he learned a lot which helped his portrayal of the character, he knows he didn't necessarily have to be so thorough in his preparations.

He said: "The research was useful in terms of the character's back story and having a level of understanding before I got to set - I walked around a lot of museums and looked at ancient tools to see what they had to work with, communicate with or eat with and do agriculture with. And also lots of art work, lots of art work came out at this time.

"I feel understanding these things was important in terms of what the character is - a lot of it you throw away though, ultimately it's an action adventure about two friends, and you don't need to know half of it, but I find it useful."

As well as learning about the period, Jamie had to do a lot of other preparation which was vital to his portrayal of the character, including learning to ride a horse and speak a new language.

He explained in an interview with Collider.com: "There was a lot of stuff required of me - I had to learn to ride a horse, you have to do that before the film if you want to get away unscathed, so that was a lot of work, three hours a week for six weeks.

"I had to learn the Gallic language, which is pretty much a dead language, there's only a small percentage of people in the UK who can speak it.

"So it was a lot, then I also had to learn what was Roman Britain in this time, what cultures and values did they have and relish, what language did they use with each other, so it was a lot."