Chances are, most people have not heard of Liev Schrieber, outside of occasional hits like the Scream sequels, The Sum Of All Fears, and the 2006 remake of The Omen. However, the 41 year-old actor has long been a favorite of critics for his narration work and his numerous memorable roles on Broadway and in films like Hamlet, HBO’s RKO 281, and The Manchurian Candidate.

Now, Liev tackles what is arguably his highest-profile role to date as supervillain Sabretooth in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Schrieber, a classically-trained actor, says it was not that much of a stretch for him to play a villain like Sabretooth

“I’m going to brand it because I’m making a run of it,” You know, it’s one of those classical things, Cain and Abel. I was thinking the other day, actually. I know this is a little Shakespearean, but Edgar and Edmond from Lear, it’s just one of those stories that for me, is really fun to play.”

Particularly telling, the actor says, is the character’s connections to the film’s titular hero.

“I got, officially, when we first started talking about it, not to get too metaphysical, I kind of got into the idea that they were two sides of the same coin,” Liev says, “That in this movie, what we were trying to explore was how this man became who he was and part of this formula was that he was at war with himself and if Victor sort of personified and represented that darker side of his character, that’s what he was doing battle with. So I loved it, because in a sense, I was also playing Wolverine, in a metaphysical sense, but nonetheless, in some sense.”

However, a particular aspect of working on the film that impressed Liev says was his co-star Hugh Jackman’s physically intensive work ethic as Wolverine.

“I can vouch for the fact that he made the Wolverine face when he was lifting weights,” Schrieber remarks.

However, Schrieber says don’t expect him to keep up the physical regimen he had to endure to play Sabretooth.

“First of all, it’s important to note that the high-protein diet does something really bad to your gastrointestinal system, but it makes walking around rather difficult,” he says, “I put on at least 130 pounds of muscle for this film. I’ve lost most of that though.”