Demanding director Guy Ritchie

Guy Ritchie admits he made the stars of 'Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows' work very hard when they performed their own stunts.

Guy Ritchie "demanded" a lot of stunt work from the stars of 'Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows'.

The British director admits Jude Law, Noomi Rapace and Robert Downey Jr. - who all appear in sleuth sequel - were required to do a lot of hard work for the action-heavy movie and admits their individual exercise routines were gruelling.

He said: "Some of these action scenes would last for two weeks and these guys had to work eight or 10 hours a day repeating the same stunt. No one asks a professional athlete to do that amount of work and consequently Jude, Robert and Noomi were constantly on a diet, constantly on an exercising routine. The whole warm up would go on for an hour, cool down goes on for an hour and then they have 10 hours in between.

"That went on week after week. It is almost impossible to appreciate you want out of them physically. Never mind the other aspect, the physical aspect was very, very demanding."

However Jude - who plays Dr. John Watson in the movie - admits everyone returning from the 2009 movie was keen to do more stunts.

He told BANG Showbiz: "I think it's true to say though that the physical aspect of this film was another important element we wanted to push further. We were pushing the dialogue, we were pushing the banter, but we did all I think noticeably step up and say, 'Let's really elevate the physicality.' "