I've done a bit of live action before but the fight sequences, the wire work and the physical regime were taken to another level [ in Doctor Strange].

When auditioning, I try to imagine that I'm the only person that they [directors] are seeing that day because it can be overwhelming, in the same sense that it could be overwhelming if you try to fulfil everyone's expectations rather than the people closest to you in the creative process, be it your director, or fellow actors and the writers. So, that's kind of it - I try to trick myself into believing that no one has ever gone there before.

You'd have to be pretty hard-nosed not to feel some sympathy for the guy [Doctor Strange].

I was very keen to work on the script with Scott Derrickson and [C. Robert] Cargill, and working out the important story beats, changing lines, upping the comedy, changing the pace, all of that was great fun.

Do I like being thought of as attractive? I don’t know anyone on Earth who doesn’t, but I do find it funny. I look in a mirror and I see all the faults I’ve lived with for 35 years and yet people go kind of nuts for certain things about me. It’s not me being humble. I just think it’s weird.

I play enough other mad people, as well and some sane people, to vary the palette of what's scrabbling around in my head and soul to bring to the floor, as a storyteller.

All the backstories are there but not talked about.