Clive Owen likes working with young actors and actresses because they are "instinctive."

The 47-year-old actor plays a father in new horror movie Intruders - about a young girl who is being haunted by a benevolent being - and he admits he enjoys the way they work and tries not to get "too prepared" when he has to work with them.

"The danger is with younger actors that if you come in too prepared, they make you look like an actor. They're instinctive. They're much rawer and if you come in with too many formed ideas about what you want to do in a scene with them, they show you up. They make you look phony, so you have to kind of get down there and act with them really."

Despite the outright horror nature of the movie - directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo - Clive admits he did not see it that way when he first read the script: "It was all literally that Jean Carlos sent me the script and I responded to the material. It wasn't like I was looking to that thing and I didn't read it as a horror film really. When I read it, I was much more interested in the psychology of the piece really and what was going on and the ideas Juan Carlos was exploring."