I find it really hard to say anything coherent or interesting about the work I do.

I was quite a shy child – not chronically, but I tended to blend into the background.

The thing I love about acting is that you can bring something very personal into the open and at the same time remain hidden because you're always playing a character in a story that someone else has imagined. You're always protected.

When I finished my A-levels, I assumed I'd be able to get work as an actor. But I couldn't. I didn't get an audition. Nothing. So I thought I'd better train and then the parts would come.

What I notice about people who are gifted in filmmaking is that they're great thinkers. They engage with big ideas and they engage with people.

When you have a character to work with, you carry them around in a strange way - they make you look at the world in a different way.

Keats himself spoke about how Shakespeare was capable of erasing himself completely from the characters he had created. As an actor, that is what I'm trying to do.