Aaron Taylor-Johnson's wild past

Aaron Taylor-Johnson has compared auditioning to "pulling girls".

The British actor won the hearts of teen fans in 2008 rom-com Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging and is now appealing to a wider audience in superhero films Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Avengers: Age of Ultron.

In an interview for Nylon magazine, the 23-year-old revealed he would audition in an American accent and then disclose later on that he was actually a Brit.

"It was kind of like learning how to pull," he mused to the publication. "It was like, how do you go into a bar and point out the fittest girl and then just go, 'I'll have her by the end of the night'"

Aaron met his wife Sam Taylor-Wood, 47, when she directed him in 2009's Nowhere Boy. They married in 2012 and have daughters Wylda, three, and Romy, two, together.

Before meeting his wife, the actor was prone to some serious partying.

"It was a lot of crazy sh*t I got up to for a couple years," he admitted. "I was pretty self-destructive at one point.

"I used to smoke 30 [cigarettes] a day, used to f**king drink nonstop. I've always been able to be on the f**king edge - be on the line, but then pull myself back."

The star stopped with his crazy ways when he met Sam and settled down. The filmmaker is currently working on the movie version of racy novel Fifty Shades of Grey, but Aaron can't understand why anyone expected him to take on the lead role of hunk Christian.

"I think it would have been the wrong kind of hype to bring toward us," he said. "It would have been kind of funny that this character that all these women fancy - he's one in a million - and my wife picks her husband to play the part'

"I would love to have done something together again, but it wouldn't have been Fifty. We were both on the same page."