Channing Tatum and Jamie Bell nearly vomited when they had to eat fake rats in their new movie 'The Eagle'.

Channing stars as young Roman officer Marcus Aquila and Jamie as his slave Esca who go on a mission to restore honour to Marcus' family in the epic movie and in one scene their characters are so desperate for food they resort to eating rodents.

Jamie insists the unusual meal made him feel physically sick.

He told BANG Showbiz: "I don't know what it was that they gave us to eat. They said it was like gelatine, like those Haribo sweets. Bulls**t. It was disgusting. And to make it worse, that scene came when it was like sheet rain, it just didn't stop. We were in puddles of water."

Director Kevin McDonald accepts conditions were tough but is adamant it was necessary to add realism to the scene.

Kevin said: "Yeah it was the end of the day, there was no more light to film but we thought we've got to get this done, let's do this scene now. There was an amazing weird light and The Rain was horizontal, so we were like break out the rats. I don't know what they tasted like but the guys were genuinely gagging. It's a great scene."