Willem Dafoe says walking on stilts in his latest movie was all "part of the fun".

The actor had the task of portraying the leader of the Tharks in the Andrew Stanton-directed science fiction movie John Carter.

His character is a nine-feet-tall alien being with four arms who is fluent in a fictional language. To garner the exceptional height, he spent much of his time on stilts.

The Hollywood star explained how he embraced the on-set accessory.

"Maybe I had been on stilts before but not these kind of stilts," he told Cover Media, smiling suggestively.

"It's part of the fun. They are all tools if you embrace them as opportunities. The truth is, I, in a very easy way, found out what it was like to be nine feet tall. That was a new experience for me. You can kiss those stilts, because they're a gift they gave you."

Willem is never put off by challenges presented to him when it comes to film roles. The 56-year-old star joked about his new-found skills from working on the set of John Carter.

"You take that newness, and you invest the energy into the character. One of the great things about the language I'm not fluent in Thark, but I can get by is that it gave me a voice, a register and a cadence for the character," he said.

"So you try and embrace these aspects of the performance and see them as opportunities instead of considering them hindrances."

John Carter is released in UK cinemas from March 9 2012