Caesar [from the Rise of the Planet of the Apes] was brought up with human beings and because of the drug he had pretty much grown up with his whole life, he felt like an outsider, he felt trapped in an ape's body but he didn't really feel like an ape and that was my way into the character. So he's always had this duality playing him from an infant all the way to now as a fifty-five year old ape.

The learning curve is 'The Hobbit' is being shot in 3D.

But that's not what an actor does. An actor finds things in the moment with a director and other actors that you don't have time to hand-draw or animate with a computer.

I'm quite contrary. If people agree on something, I tend to gravitate the other way by my nature. I don't like to be told what to do. I think it goes back to school. I like to do things I want to do and I really don't like doing what I don't want to do.

I love acting and certainly won't give it up, but it's part of a bigger canvas for me now.

There are no rhymes or reason, actually. Having said that, you know, cause there are people who are absolutely single-minded about their process and they can still come up with great work. But (what) I enjoy and it's the same, I suppose, as I became more of a family man, I enjoy, I enjoy an atmosphere where it, you know, doesn't have to be about conflict to get good results.

That's why I ended up going to Lancaster University, because they had a visual arts course, and in the first year it was like a broad visual arts course in sculpture, painting, graphics - all of that.