As the Duke of Hastings, Regé-Jean Page launched thousands of thirst tweets. But the social media ton might not be on his side after watching the Bridgerton star play the less-than-honorable clandestine CIA officer, Denny Carmichael, in the new thriller The Gray Man. The action-packed blockbuster sees Page pivot from one of Netflix’s most beloved heroes to a man who’s hell-bent on hunting down the internet’s original boyfriend, Ryan Gosling. But Page isn’t too worried about the tide of public opinion turning against him. After all, his character wouldn’t be.

“The joy of Denny Carmichael is I don’t think he much cares if people are on his side,” Page tells Tudum. “His side is the only side, and if people aren’t on it, he’ll manipulate them into it. If they’re still not on his side, then they don’t need to be here, and he’ll deal with them accordingly.”

Lloyd Gets Orders To Destroy Six | ‘The Gray Man’Starring Chris Evans, Regé-Jean Page, and Jessica Henwick.

Consider Gosling’s character, CIA assassin Court Gentry (aka Sierra Six), who isn’t on Denny’s side. Denny’s solution: sending mustachioed mercenary Lloyd Hansen (another online favorite, Chris Evans) to handle the situation. Denny remains safely ensconced in his CIA office, quietly orchestrating the destruction from afar. This means that Page didn’t really have the same stunt-heavy experience as co-stars Gosling and Evans — something he is also perfectly OK with.

“No, I was good, man,” he says. In fact, he says that he got to relax while “Ryan and Chris were running around the world, kicking the crap out of each other, mostly because we told them to. It’s fun getting to be in charge.”

But that doesn’t mean Page doesn’t want to try his hand at brutal action scenes someday. He says he would eventually like to do a little bit of everything. And after his villain era ends, he’s ready for another challenge. “I want to play all the characters, want to be in all the movies,” he says. “​My favorite thing to discover in this job is the unknown. I wouldn’t have imagined Denny Carmichael before the Russo brothers came to me with him, and he turned into quite a gift. I think I just want that over and over again — not Denny over and over again, but to be surprised. To find something that I didn’t know that I was able to tackle, and finding those solutions. That’s been thrilling.”

That said, in real life, Page’s persona hews much closer to the affable Simon Basset than the prickly Denny. And it’s not just Denny’s American accent and gold wire glasses that set him apart. “It’s a little bit like separating the yolks from the whites when you’re baking,” he says. “It’s just about picking which ingredients you work with. I think the more interesting thing with Denny is he had a very different rhythm to myself. He’s a very difficult man to be around. So even when I dropped the accent and I was hanging around with my friends, they’re like, ‘You have a kind of creepy energy today. Do you want to work that one out of your system?’ His ways of interacting with people are a lot harsher than mine are. The glasses help, mostly just because they give you something to do. Every actor loves a prop. We want toys.”

Hear that, Hollywood? All the characters, all the movies, all the toys, all the genres. Romance, action, drama, comedy — Regé-Jean Page wants it all.

“I think that the world is hilarious, especially at its darkest,” the actor says, picking up the thread. “I think that life is relatively absurd in most places, but I think the art that reflects that generally tends to be stronger for it. So yes to comedy, yes to tragedy, and if you could put it together, all the better.”

Paul Abell/Netflix

Page says that he would happily collaborate with the “hugely generous” Russos again in a heartbeat — it was a creative and collaborative experience for all involved. But what he really wants to do is make sure that whatever he does, it’s his own. Like a collage: “I like to steal little pieces from everyone, and the whole from no one. That way, you keep space free for yourself to make something new, you know?”

Whether that new character is good or bad, hero or villain, Page just wants to play someone with layers, nuance and depth.

“Aptly, for this movie, there’s a lot between black and white,” he says. “There’s a lot of gray. I don’t think that anyone is entirely good or bad. I don’t think any of the characters I’ve played have been entirely straight-up good guys. I think that’s the most interesting part of the job. If you have a decent character with depth to them, there’s always a light shade.”