Michael Douglas stunned by Irvine's skill

Michael Douglas was overwhelmed by Jeremy Irvine's accent in Beyond the Reach.

The 70-year-old thespian stars as corporate shark Madec alongside the young British actor's guide Ben in the upcoming thriller flick, which sees them play a dangerous game during a hunting trip in the Mojave Desert.

Michael has been in the industry since the 60s so recognises a good performance when he sees one, praising Jeremy's ability to transform himself for the movie.

"Well there must of been a fair amount of acting because for your audiences, Jeremy plays a kid from New Mexico and you hear him talk [in real life] you would think it's far from it," he explained to wegotthiscovered.com. "But when he plays the part he was right there, I could not believe how good his American accent was and he won the role over a whole bunch of young other American actors."

Jeremy added that he had to alter his appearance to look like a Yank as British people don't look as "ripped".

With a majority of the shoot taking place in the desert, things weren't easy for the cast and crew. Michael and the 24-year-old spent three hours in make-up to look sunburnt, and Jeremy reveals most of what the audience see with his behaviour isn't put on.

"It really was real and it really was brutal, brutal conditions and at night it was almost snowing and freezing cold and so there wasn't, I guess, a lot of acting to do. What you see on there is kind of real," he chuckled.

"That was a lot of prosthetic make-up [to make me look burnt]. That was the toughest part actually, you don't really think about that when you read the script."