As far as my notoriety or whatever, I haven't been the star of a hit film.

I see myself as a character actor, and I've always been drawn to playing characters that are different from myself because acting is escapism for me. I've never been that comfortable playing people that are like me.

Anybody who is in freelance work, especially artistically, knows that it comes with all the insecurity and the ups and downs. It's a really frightening life .

I've often gone to start a film only to find the producers surprised to discover that I'm American.

For a long time a lot of people thought I'm British, because I'd done so many roles with English accents. People probably still think it. Or they don't think anything.

You have to be in movies that make money to be offered work. Basically that's the equation. There's no real way around that. That said, you don't ever make decisions solely for that reason.

The thing with being able to do accents is that it's still completely separate from being an actor.