Henry Cavill "doesn't sleep" when preparing to play Superman.

The British actor - who is playing the hero in forthcoming movie 'Man of Steel' - admits he doesn't focus too much on the pressure of portraying such an iconic character and instead just likes to do his job, which involves a lot of training and meetings.

He said: "A lot of people are relying on me to do the job properly. I tend to avoid focusing on the pressure and just do the job. And that involves a lot of man-hours.

"Training, training, training - of various types - study, source material study, meetings, costume meetings, costume meeting and then tea! They're 24-hour days. You just don't sleep. At all. Ever."

However, the 'Immortals' star has not been watching previous film instalments to get himself into character, and instead reads the original comic books.

He told Empire Magazine: "When you're doing an origin story, and a reinvention of the franchise, I certainly want to avoid watching too much of the films done previously, or other moving footage, because you can start picking up character traits of other actors' interpretations.

"The truest source of Superman is the comic books, and I want to immerse myself in those, and bring out what I can bring out from that."