Escape From Pretoria tackles the real-life tale of two political prisoners from South Africa, Tim Jenkin and Stephen Lee, who hatch a plan to break out after daring to oppose Apartheid. While the movie is out in select cinemas now, it is also available digitally. Daniel Radcliffe plays Jenkin, who wrote the autobiography on which the film is based, and Daniel Webber (The Punisher) took on the role of Lee.

Webber is no stranger to playing real-life historical figures who are still alive, and the actor shared his thoughts on shouldering that responsibility in a recent interview with Screen Rant. He also heaped praise on director Francis Annan and explained why stories about activism are so important.

Escape From Pretoria isn't your first time playing a real life character, you also had a notable performances as the lead in The Dirt, the Mötley Crüe story. What's the key to bringing a real life personality to screen?

Daniel Webber: Honestly, I don't know what the key is. But I would say it's about responsibility. There's so much more at stake, in many ways. You know the friends, family, and even the people themselves are gonna be watching, so it's really up to you to be as close and as accurate to what the truth and reality of their lives and the situation is.

So, I don't know what the key is, but I just jump in with everything that I have. It comes down to researching, and if you can, learn about the person as much as you can. In this case, there wasn't so much to be found out about Stephen online. There was obviously Tim's book, and so I kept going back to that. But I sort of looked at him through the prism of the decision to give up what I imagine was quite a comfortable middle-class life and join the ANC and go on this mission to fight his government.

Just trying to understand why he did that was probably the most important thing in portraying him, and that involves learning about apartheid and the regime there, and what they did to people. If you learn about that sort of stuff and you don't start yelling and screaming at the ceiling for how infuriating and enraging this government was, and how horrific it was, I think you're not human. So, it was basically just trying to understand why he did what he did.

I also read that Tim was actually on set with you guys for a little bit. Did you get to pick his brain about Stephen at all?

Daniel Webber: Yeah, we did. Tim came on the set maybe about three or four weeks into the shoot. What was really great was that the producers and the director organized for us to meet both of them beforehand. Dan and I were in rehearsals in this old cinema, and they ended up projecting Tim and Stephen at different times up on the cinema screen. So, we ended up having these wonderful conversations with these guys that we highly respected, who were telling their story with their faces 10 feet tall up on the cinema screen.

We just asked them about their lives and tried to get more of a sense of the other person through Tim or through Steven, depending on who you're talking to. So yeah, we did get to get chat.

What was the most surprising thing you learned about Tim and Stephen's story while you were doing your research?

Daniel Webber: I think one of the things was how you basically lose autonomy in prison. The state essentially owns you. And we've all seen prison stories and dramas and whatnot, but it never really hit home how much your life is completely observed by other people now. Your life is based around prison routine, and you sort of lose that sense of self and that ability to dictate what you want to do and you know how you want to live your life. There's an order to it all.

Every director has their own style, and they bring out different things in their actors. What did your director, Francis Annan, help you discover about yourself or about your acting style while you were working with him?

Daniel Webber: You know, I just truly loved the experience of being on set with him and with the rest of the group. We had amazing actors; it was a great script. Francis himself, I think, is a director that everybody's going to be knowing about and is going to hear about in a couple of years. I think he's an exceptional director.

For me, with this project, I was so thoroughly on board with the story and the message - and even more so with Francis himself. He inspires such confidence. He'd been on the project for eight years and has such a thorough breadth of knowledge about the escape, about Apartheid, about that whole era. You could literally go and ask him any question you wanted, and you would have an answer in essay form.

I don't know what I learned about myself as an actor here. But maybe I really discovered the types of stories that I would love to continue telling. I think this is a really valuable film, period. I think it's a valuable film now, about activism, standing up and having courage, and sort of holding true to your beliefs, and the value of humanity.

Can you talk to me about your South African accent and your work with a dialect coach?

Daniel Webber: Yeah. It's a funny thing, because Stephen and Tim - Stephen especially, is quite British. So, we were actually on the fence for a very long time. I believe it was a week before filming that we decided, between myself and Dan Radcliffe and the director, we should lean further into the South African accent.  So, we had about a week to add the accent into the film.

You know you work with a coach, and she was on set every day. I would find people online, and I loved the broad sound that they had and thought it applied quite well to Stephen. And that's basically it. I was just walking around on set with earphones in for half of the experience, listening to South African interviews.

We were shooting in Australia, so there's a lot of mix accents there. It's a tricky one, because you don't want to be hearing [other accents] as much as you can, since it throws you off.

More: Escape From Pretoria: Francis Annan Interview