I think what I loved in cinema - and what I mean by cinema is not just films, but proper, classical cinema - are the extraordinary moments that can occur on screen. At the same time, I do feel that cinema and theater feed each other. I feel like you can do close-up on stage and you can do something very bold and highly characterized - and, dare I say, theatrical - on camera. I think the cameras and the viewpoints shift depending on the intensity and integrity of your intention and focus on that.

I am very flattered. I have also become a verb as in "I have cumberbatched the UK audience" apparently. Who knows, by the end of the year I might become a swear word too! It's crazy and fun and very flattering.

I love the idea of playing something stupid or romantic. I'm not the smartest man in the room. I listen, and I learn, and I observe, but I'm always playing characters with intellects profoundly superior to mine. That's great fun, even though it's as much a fantasy for me as for the people watching me.

There's another weight of us being in the public eye, which is this presumption that, because your work and your promotion work is very public, your private life should be, too.

An inflated sense of self-importance? Absolutely, but I think it comes from Doctor Strange need to control things and that's what happens to all surgeons, I think. There's a huge degree of uncertainty and bafflement.

I got live tweeted once by someone who was opposite my home in some rented accommodation. He was actually describing on twitter what I was doing. 'I took a shirt off, I went to the window, I put a shirt back on... ' And I've got blinds in my flat!

I keep myself amused and others confused