The actor decided he needed a vacation after filming ?Buried? - in which he plays a US truck driver in Iraq who accidentally gets trapped in a coffin with just a mobile phone and lighter - but failed to fully think through what would be the best setting for him to unwind after the gruelling movie.

He explained: "There`s not a lot of ways to unwind properly after a film like this. I never take traditional vacations, usually; I try to turn my vacations into ?The Amazing Race?, the reality TV contest.

"So I had planned your standard kind of lay down on a beach somewhere and try to not do anything but maybe read a book, and that didn`t work out so well because what I didn`t think of in advance would be that I would be lying on sand yet again. So I did actually go to the place I was supposed to be vacationing at and I stayed for six hours and then just went home."

Ryan - who is married to Scarlett Johansson - admitted working on the movie took its toll on him, both physically and mentally, and even disrupted his sleeping patterns.

He explained: "All of the physical injuries are like souvenirs. But the emotional stuff is harder. When you`re spending 17 straight days in a heightened state of anxiety and panic, it`s not very good for your nervous system, so you walk away pretty jittery.

"I definitely struggled with a lot of insomnia when I was working on this film and that was something that was new to me."
sections: Celebrities