Mountaineering has always been a huge hobby of mine.

My agent told me they were casting for the voice of Gollum. I hadnt read The Lord of the Rings, but I read the script and realized what an amazing role it was. I developed a voice for the audition tape, then met Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh at the auditions and fell in love with them both.

For film and games, there is now a fantastic method of actors portraying characters which don't necessarily look like themselves. And yet you've still got the heart and soul of the performance.

I believe that when people experience an event as a community it can transcend and change people's lives.

I just directed The Jungle Book with Cate Blanchet and Christian Bale.

it's a weird thing with acting and it happens to a lot of actors, not just myself - it's like you're giving off an I really need to be loved today vibe. My worst moment recently is I fell asleep on the tube in London on the Victoria line 8:30 in the morning and I woke up and there were about five people with iPhones taking pictures.

I suppose the biggest strain was that Hoodwink is a high-octane character and he's up there like all the time. Once he's on his journey there's no let up for the man, so I actually found it a massively exhausting job to keep that level up.