The first Hulk was a famously strained project, but this new one seems lighter.

Tim Roth: Well, this isn’t Chekhov. It’s supposed to be fun for kids and the parents of those kids who have to sit in the cinema or have to buy them those toys at Christmas. It’s supposed to be fun for them, and if we get that right, we’re good.

Don’t forget the vast audience of kids’ minds in grown-men bodies.

Tim Roth: I missed Comic-Con, but I definitely know that it’s there [laughs].

People are talking up the technology that melds CGI with actual acting. Can you give us some sense of how much of you is in the Abomination?

Tim Roth: A lot. And I can’t give anything away but...it’s different from what people are thinking.

The trailer for Michael Haneke’s Funny Games remake is pretty unsettling.

Tim Roth: It’s one of the hardest things I’ve done as an actor. It’s a very difficult thing to come to the set every day-and we shot in sequence-to be in that much distress. We had to really feel it to get that across to the audience. I don’t know if it’s a good film or a bad film; I don’t know if it’s exploitive or not. I don’t think I’ll ever see this one. This one’s too disturbing for me.

There’s been a lot of talk over the years about Tarantino’s war epic Inglorious Bastards. Is that moving forward?

Tim Roth: He’s talked to me about it in the past and it does keep coming up-people keep coming up to ask me about it. And I’m really not sure. I owe him a phone call. My feeling with Quentin has always been that I’d work with him at the drop of the hat.

People always yell at actors as though they are their characters, it seems. What do you hear the most?

Tim Roth: Oh, that “Everybody be cool” thing. “This is a robbery!” Pulp Fiction type stuff. I’m quite often surprised, really obscure stuff comes up. Little Odessa and things like that. Gridlock’d. Hoodlum comes up a lot, too. It’s very strange, isn’t it? I never can pin it down. Home // CELEBRITIES // THE SHOTCALLER // Tim Roth