“I was going through a patch where I couldn’t get a job for the life of me and I was feeling a bit sorry for myself. Nothing was sticking. I got an email asking if I could put myself on tape [for If I Stay]. Because I was feeling sorry for myself, I was like, ‘I’m not going to get it anyway, I’m just going to pretend I didn’t get the email.’ They kept chasing me up about where the tape was. I did a tape for the casting director in London towards the end of the week and then over the weekend they basically said they wanted me to test for it. I was like, ‘oh my God’. I didn’t come out feeling like it had gone particularly great but by the Monday I was on a flight to LA. I did a test with Chloe and that was it.

I get starstruck anyway, so immediately I walked in and I was like, ‘it’s Chloe Moretz’. I tried to act as calm as possible – inside I was s******g myself. I think I’m a terrible auditionee. I don’t think I’ve come out of something and gone, ‘yeah, smashed that.’

A lot of it really isn’t up to you. You go in there, do the best you can under the circumstances and then you’ve got to fit so many different criteria. You’ve got to be what these people imagine this guy to be like. To me, Adam felt like someone close to me and I was lucky that way.

It felt like an age. I was waiting about two weeks [to hear about the part]. I was going out of my mind, because I felt the longer time went on, the further away it was getting. And then I just got a call in the evening from RJ [Cutler] the director, telling me he wanted me to do it. I thought that was so nice of him, telling me directly. Usually you get a call from someone else asking if you want to do it.

I feel like I would have put more pressure on myself if I knew how many people really loved [the book]. I read the book when I found out I was testing and then after I got the job I started to realise how many people love this book and that scared the life out of me. I hope they all like it, that would be great.

Working with Woody Allen came about when my agent sent him a film I was in called And While We Were Here. He saw that and they asked if I would come and meet with him, so I went for a very brief, 10-minute meeting. I went to New York for all of three hours. He hardly said anything to me. They threw a couple of scenes at me which I didn’t know was going to happen. He asked me how old I was and that was it. He said thank you for coming in. It was all a bit of a blur really. You don’t expect to be in a room with a guy like that. It was really surreal. I got a call when I was about to come through the arrivals gate asking me if I wanted to do it. I said of course.

I’m in no rush to be anywhere. I’m 23, I have an idea of where I want to be in terms of doing stuff I would enjoy watching, but where that takes me, I’m not really bothered.

If I continue like that, I’ll be happy.”

If I Stay is in cinemas now.