In "Among Giants," his most recent film, Postlethwaite, 53, has his first romantic lead, opposite Rachel Griffith ("Hillary and Jackie"). His character, Ray, is a foreman whose disheveled crew of handymen has been assigned the dangerous job of painting 15 miles worth of treacherously high electrical pylons, which they must scale like mountain climbers. Written by Simon Beaufoy ("The Full Monty"), the story focuses on the difficult romance that grows between Ray and Gerry (Griffith), a young Australian drifter whom he hires to help finish the monumental task.

Numerous scenes in "Among Giants" are shot from the dizzying heights of the enormous steel structures that Ray and his crew paint, and along the rocky cliffs outside Sheffield, where Gerry, Ray and his best friend, Steve (James Thornton), climb in their spare time. The movie posed other challenges for its actors: In one particularly touching scene, Griffith and Postlethwaite wander completely nude through a downpour.

Salon spoke with Postlethwaite by phone from his home on the South Coast of England. We discussed the difficulties of rock climbing, the liberating feeling that comes with doing nude scenes and the recent Shakespeare revival in film.

As an actor, you've worked on a broad spectrum of projects, including two huge Spielberg movies and some smaller films like "Brassed Off" and "Among Giants." How do you compare working on big productions vs. small ones? Which do you prefer?

I like them both for exactly the same reasons. It's normally the script and the people you're working with that you go for. [In both big-budget and small projects] that seems to be the case anyways, so I find no difference between them, really. It's the tale and the people that are telling them that draw you to a project.

"Among Giants" must have been a physically challenging film to shoot.

It was particularly challenging for everyone, for the crew as well as any of the cast. The crew were lumbering up there with their gear, with their cameras and their microphones.

So you were actually up there on the towers --

We were up there, honey. Way up there.

You had to learn to climb for the role. Did you enjoy that?

It was great. Great fun -- especially being on the cliff face, on the rocks. It was a beautiful part of England, all that, Yorkshire, the dales there.

Were you ever really afraid up there?

We were when we did the opening shot, when we went to the top [of a cliff], because it was a helicopter shot. I thought we'd just be lifted up there with a cherry-picker and brought back down. But if you do that, where do you put the cherry-picker when you want the shot? So we had to climb up there. We were up there for an hour or so. We were glad to get down.

A lot of fuss has been made about this being your first romantic role. And you're buck-naked in a whole scene. What's going through your head when you're being filmed completely naked like that?

Well, everybody's incredibly professional about it. And especially in a scene like that, they take care of each other. It's what you do in those kinds of situations. It was a delightful day, in fact.

When you do something like that, do you just have to completely --

Go with the flow! (Laughs.) And with someone like Rachel, as well, who's an absolute trouper. If a scene is properly integrated into the story and should be in a story, then she just gives her whole heart and soul to it -- and body in this case. It's actually terribly liberating, really. It's a wonderful feeling. And it's a very special scene, I think. Very much part of the story.

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