Sam Claflin has said fatherhood has made him “a more open and sensitive person”.
The Hunger Games star shares two children with wife Laura Haddock, son Pip, three, and daughter Margot, one.
Their second child was born just a few weeks before Claflin started filming his new movie The Corrupted, and the actor said it impacted how he saw his role as a former criminal trying to win back the trust of his family.
He told the Press Association: “I think it’s just made me a more open and sensitive person, honestly.
“I think the thought of losing a child is something incomparable and of course there is a moment in this where his son goes missing and I think it wasn’t hard to trigger that emotion, honestly.
“But it also was a very tiring process because I was going home every night, and the commute from east to west was quite substantial but doing that when you have a newborn baby at home was very trying. It was very trying.
“There’s a new level of love that only another parent can really understand.”
Production on the film was a family affair because it also stars his brother Joe, but Claflin said the pair did not have room in the tight schedule to mess around.
He added: “This was one of those jobs, there was absolutely no time for banter.
“It was such a short shoot and we didn’t have a massive budget, you’d have two takes maximum before we’d have to move locations.
“It was just constantly moving, we didn’t have time to laugh… I mean, we did laugh and joke and have fun and muck around with it but really it was quite an intense shoot.
“But what was amazing was watching my little brother kind of grow as an actor, and as a person.
“I was very proud watching him, and feeling him kind of come back at me even more than I thought that he could, you know?
“I honestly think he’s an incredible actor and to have an opportunity to see him have this platform, I feel very lucky, hopefully this is something more for him.
“But he’s an incredible guy and I feel very, very honoured to be sharing a screen with him.
“There was no trust that we had to build up, or there was no chemistry that we had to fake, it was all there for real.”
Claflin took up boxing for the role and said he is still keeping up with the training.
He continued: “I’d never boxed before last January and I still go almost daily, more than once a day some days.
“Not so much the actual fighting aspect of it, but the fitness and the general banter and atmosphere in a boxing gym is so different to any other gym, I’ve found, and maybe that’s just unique to the gym that I go to but I really found a new found love for it.”
The Corrupted is released in UK cinemas on May 10.