As a singer, I might have fallen among thieves. I wonder if I'd still be alive by now.

Fifteen years before I became a screen actor, I was in the theatre. A lot of my work was comedy, which I loved doing. It's harder.

I think I'm more bonded, emotionally and in a craft sense, to films that tell extraordinary stories about extraordinary destinies.

Hopefully, as I get older in the business, I make my choices more accurately, and I perhaps know from either the script or the first meeting that it isn't going to work.

It is better for me to serve a charity as an actor or a voice, rather than at a luncheon being just a celebrity.

If it's a really well written villain, he probably has more layers than the archetypal good person. So that would be very attractive to an actor. No one chooses to be a villain; it's usually a reaction to something else.

It's Sir Ben. I've not been a Mister for two years.