Giant star Amir El-Masry breaks down his emotional fight scene with Pierce Brosnan

Given that it tells the story of one of the most iconic British boxers of all time – Prince Naseem Hamed (Amir El-Masry) – it's no surprise that new biopic Giant contains its fair share of high-octane fighting sequences.

But there's one moment in writer/director Rowan Athale's film that does come as a bit of a shock: when Naseem's long-time trainer Brendan Ingle (Pierce Brosnan) decides to get in the ring and challenge his prodigy to a highly charged bout.

As the film shows, Ingle had coached Naseem ever since spotting his massive potential at the age of just seven, but what began as an extremely close father/son bond soured later in the legendary boxer's career, with the aforementioned fight coming when the pair's relationship was at an especially low ebb.

"The ring fight... I mean, in one scene it represents everything," El-Masry explained in an exclusive interview with RadioTimes.com, indicating that it was a culmination of years of growing tension between the pair. "They were fighting at each other outside of the ring for such a long time, both trying to get their point across," he added.

But El-Masry also pointed to another scene which occurs later in the film – an imagined reconciliation between the pair – which he believes offers a nice counterpoint to this earlier confrontation.

"There is a very beautiful moment that Rowan has quite intelligently written in the script that actually kind of sold it for me even just to do the film," he said. "The more emotional, vulnerable side that encapsulates the relationship between a father and a son, one man trying to become his own [thing] and one trying to still stay in that community."

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Asked if he enjoyed getting the chance to enter the boxing ring himself, Brosnan responded that he enjoyed "every aspect" of making the film.

"It was an intense experience because the time was so short, the script was so poignant, and we both really wanted to tell the story... without actually talking to each other," he explained.

"We didn't really have dinners or anything like that. We kind of showed up, we went to work, we rehearsed, went home. Amir worked out and studied. I did the same – study, study. So you live a very isolated life, you don't go out and party.

"It's just work, get up, go to work, come home, prepare. So you're constantly living with the character."

Brosnan also explained that playing Ingle had taken him back to his earliest days as an actor, adding that he viewed the Sheffield-based trainer as "a saintly man."

Giant is now showing in UK cinemas.

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