I did actually sit down with a blank sheet of paper once. I think the phone rang and that was the end of my literary career.

I don't want to associate myself with any specific group of politicians.

I don't normally watch films I'm in because I'm squeamish about that and it takes me quite a long time to recover and I have to go to work. I'm not being coy or cute, but it's just true.

I'm not a financial expert. The Robin Hood tax seems to me a very simple and beautiful idea. I don't see the problem.

I hardly even leave my own house.

You tell yourself that you're not auditioning but of course you work like crazy, and you prepare like mad. And you think, "Well, I won't get that job. But maybe they'll have another job sometime, and they'll remember that I was good."

Often in America people would assume that [as an English actor] you've had some sort of deep, classical training, or that you're a Shakespeare enthusiast. I have zero interest in me performing Shakespeare.