I'm interested in art for all. I don't want it to be only the sons and daughters of Tory MPs who get to see my plays.

I'm not loyal to one genre. I want to mix it up.

If you can't jump on board when the ride's going past that's it, it usually goes by, so the hugest compliment they paid me was to come back to me. It motivated me to try to fulfill their faith.

The more charming person is the person who admits the other person is more charming.

Laughing and crying are really similar - what happens to your body. It's a very similar process in your diaphragm. Like a musician, you have to do your scales once in a while and warm up your voice.

The generation now below me were born into a world where if you're a kid with raw talent now, you can roll in and land a lead in a Scorsese film. You don't have to have prove yourself by working up the ranks, doing the classics, and getting the canon under your belt in the way the great Sirs and Dames of mom and dad's generation - the [Ben] Kingsleys and [Helen] Mirrens and [Anthony] Hopkinses and people of that ilk.

I can feel infinitely alive curled up on the sofa reading a book.