Gabriel Macht is taking on the challenge of playing the titular character in Will Eisner's The Spirit, being directed by Frank Miller, and there have been lots of early commentaries, both good and bad, about what direction that film seems to be going in. Macht recently spoke to Wizard Universe about the process of working on the film.

Macht discussed what it was like to work with such a “who’s who” of Hollywood beauties for the film, what it was like working with Frank Miller, the process of working on a green-screen set, and the vision of the character of The Spirit and his world that actor and director worked with.

Macht shared one especially fun story about working with Miller:

One thing we did was, we were talking about how the Spirit is physically very strong and can obviously take care of himself. He finds ways to protect himself and civilians in Central City. He'll use a manhole cover as a shield or something. He hates guns. But there's also the sense of the Spirit being sort of clumsy. He may walk into a wall or whatever. I was talking with Frank once, and he was telling me about how he wanted this punch to look—he was hoping for the Spirit to really look like he knew what he was doing, and this punch was a deadly hit, right? So when he reached back to show me the punch, he actually hit himself in the nose. [Laughs] It was hilarious, because it was exactly what the Spirit would have done. It was just a perfect image, a metaphor for who the Spirit is.

To read the full interview with Gabriel Macht click here.

Directed by comic book legend Frank Miller, Will Eisner's The Spirit opens January 16th, 2009, and stars Gabriel Macht, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Eva Mendes, Sarah Paulson, Dan Lauria, Stana Katic, Johnny Simmons, Louis Lombardi, Jamie King and Paz Vega.