A smiling Sam Worthington ambles into a Beverly Hills hotel suite looking a little doughy for an Avatar action star. But he’s fine with the assessment.

“I don’t really like going to the gym,” the Australian actor admits. “Now I try to put that into my characters.”

Certainly, the 35-year-old has more choices after starring in James Cameron’s sci-fi blockbuster, Avatar, and the gods-and-monsters hit, Clash of the Titans. (The sequel, Wrath of the Titans, is set to open March 30.)

He hasn’t received an official start date for the next two Avatar pictures, so he’s forging ahead with his own career moves. And that brings us to Worthington’s lead role in Man on a Ledge, which opens Jan. 27.

The film, directed by Asger Leth, is a combination of heist picture, crime thriller and procedural. Worthington’s Nick Cassidy is an escaped convict and former New York police officer, who is hanging out on the 21st-floor ledge of Manhattan’s famous Roosevelt Hotel.

Threatening to jump, Cassidy has an ulterior motive, as he negotiates with an officer (Elizabeth Banks) at the scene. While she tries to talk him in, he’s trying to expose the corrupt cops who framed him for a diamond heist that sent him to prison.

When Worthington signed on, he asked for, and got, a few alterations to the plot, which made the movie more streamlined, and his character less ripped. He also agreed to shoot most of his scenes on the actual Roosevelt Hotel ledge, despite his anxiety about heights.

“I don’t really have vertigo or a fear of heights,” he says, smirking at the memory. “I have a fear of falling and landing.”

Banks joined him for a few sequences, but Worthington spent most of his screen time on the ledge in 10-minute intervals, always harnessed, but aware of the danger, when gusts of icy December wind would push him to the edge.

“The first time I went out, I was happy I didn’t burst into tears and curl up in a ball,” he says. “After a while, you get comfortable, but you never get complacent.”

In fact, he had two close calls, but was saved by the safety belts. “A few times, I was hanging like a marionette – that was the worst.”

And then were the cynical New Yorkers on the street below, staring up at him. “Some people were yelling, ‘Jump, jump.’ I think they were disgruntled fans from my last few movies.”

Mind you, Worthington is earthbound for some of the action: He escapes from prison guards and cooks up a diamond theft with his brother (Jamie Bell) and girlfriend (Genesis Rodriguez).

All things considered, Man on a Ledge is fairly mainstream entertainment, which Worthington suggests is its strength.

“It’s unashamedly a popcorn movie,” he says. “Sometimes, it’s OK to make a movie where people just get their money’s worth.”

The same could be said for Wrath of the Titans, although Worthington is hoping his performance as Perseus will be an improvement.

“I wasn’t happy with what I did in the first one,” he says of his Clash of the Titans performance. “I think I let down an audience. In hindsight, it’s a generic, bland, shaved-head conduit for action.”

This time around, Worthington made some adjustments to the Wrath of the Titans screenplay.

“I sat down with the director (Jonathan Liebesman) and mapped out what I wanted to say with the heroic journey of Perseus,” says Worthington. “Now, I’ve got a character people will have empathy with, rather than audiences thinking, ‘This could be played by anybody.’”

In keeping with his new attitude toward minimum workouts, Worthington also made Perseus less godlike in his demeanour.

“Perseus hasn’t done much for 10 years,” he says of the plot. “He hasn’t flown on the horse. So he hurts his bum a bit, and he complains all the time that he has to run.”

Indeed, Worthington and his girlfriend watched the new movie together recently, and the actor had the somewhat dubious honour of an early review.

“She said, ‘You run really funny.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ She said, ‘You look out of breath.’ I said, ‘Hang on a minute,’ and she goes, ‘No, it’s good. (Perseus) hasn’t done anything for 10 years.’”

“In reality,” confesses Worthington. “I was just exhausted.”

Perhaps the actor will have a few suggestions for Cameron when they begin the new Avatar films in a few years.

“I can try, mate,” says Worthington. “I see him soon. I’ll tell him, ‘Yeah, I have some great ideas for the sequels.’”

What does he think Cameron will say? Worthington doesn’t hesitate: “‘You can easily be replaced.’”

Total Film was on-set of Wrath Of The Titans, and we caught up with Perseus himself, Sam Worthington, to find out more about the swords and sandals and whopping great monsters epic.

Given the lukewarm response to Clash Of The Titans, audiences may need some convincing if they’re to go on another ride with Perseus.

But Wrath is set 10 years on, and Worthington’s convinced that the team have the story elements cracked this time around.

“It’s about a dysfunctional family,” he explains. “You’ve got a guy – a son – that doesn’t like his Dad. His real Dad. And his real Dad is having problems with his brothers. The son has his own son now, his own family and his own responsibility, and it’s about keeping the family together.

“That’s basically how we looked at it. Then you thrown in a shit-load of monsters and special effects and you should have a good movie.”

Worthington was also keen to emphasise the physical nature of Perseus’ struggle: “[Me and director Jonathan Liebesman] are both fans of movies where the hero is not only reluctant but can get beat up a lot more,” says the Avatar star.

“If you look at things like Die Hard and Lethal Weapon, the main hero got his arse handed to him. And we went, ‘Even though Perseus is half-god, he’s also half-human, and if you keep knocking the hero down he struggles a lot more’. In the first one Perseus is a bit of a superhuman and he doesn’t seem to get hurt. In this one, he gets hurt all the time. That was something we strove for.”

Wrath Of The Titans opens on 30 March 2012.

For more on Wrath Of The Titans, get the new issue of Total Film magazine, which hits newsstands on tomorrow.

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