The big stars I felt a kinship with were never the romantic leads. It wasn't Steve McQueen or Robert Redford - it was people like Walter Matthau and Anthony Quinn. My big hero was Tommy Cooper.

If anything, as a general rule, the cheaper the movie the more creative the experience, generally speaking. Its not to denigrate expensive movies. I dont want to seem biting the hands that feed me, but with big movies, especially with a lot of effects, the role of the actor is somewhat diminished.

My wife and I use a lot of garlic and rosemary with roast lamb. It has to be New Zealand lamb. The domestic variety is too gamy, in my experience.

I love playing villains.

I think, because of my background, which is slightly more exotic than the average British actor, I think, I sort of occupied this little niche quite early on of playing the foreign guy. It started way back at drama school, I played an Eastern European heavy, I played the Russian mobster. And I have done all those different ethnic roles, and I think it's partly because of my look, I think I've got an adaptable sort of nondescript ethnicity, which you can't quite pin down, but it's enough to kind of get a flavor of something.

I think enjoying each other in a creative way is usually a result of when you're doing something that might be problematic - might be a little difficult to uncover. I've done it once in a stage production; we came in for two days and, just as an experiment, the director had us reading each other's roles. You hear another voice interpreting a line that maybe you were having trouble with. It can be very helpful. But we weren't really in the kind of situation where that was necessary.

Music is an essential part of my life and I'm completely lost without a good album to listen to or my iPod in my pocket!