Small parts in Stardust, Tristan + Isolde and a supporting role in Woody Allen’s Whatever Works have done nothing to dent his rise, and he finally landed the lead in a major motion picture with the part of Theseus in Tarsem Singh’s Immortals (formerly War of the Gods), which the director described to us as “Fight Club meets Caravaggio”. Due out on November 11 this year, the story sees Cavill play the peasant who must stand up to Mickey Rourke’s evil King Hyperion. The monarch plans to find a McGuffin called the Epirus Bow, made by Ares (God of War) himself, and use it to free the ancient, powerful and thoroughly imprisoned Titans.

Theseus, naturally, has to save the world, and do it all without wearing a single shirt, as far as we can see from the footage so far. Still, he does have Stephen Dorff and Freida Pinto’s priestess Phaedra to help him, so that’s something. "The character is a fairly angry man," is how Cavill puts it. "Angry because he feels like he’s been dealt with unfairly throughout life, so he's taken on fairly aggressive qualities. He’s still a good man, and still fairly self-aware, but I think he’s peeved at the world." Peeved is a light word to use, there.