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."

I used to think that prizes were damaging and divisive, until I got one, and now they seem sort of meaningful and important.

One of my great regrets, and I don't have many, is that I spent too long putting people's status and reputation ahead of their more important qualities. I learned far too late in life that a long list of letters after someone's name is no guarantee of compassion, kindness, humour, all the far more relevant stuff.

Actors always talk about taking their work home and I always think: 'What are you on? You just turn it off. You are at work and then you go home.'

I do think 3D has seriously improved, since I was a boy. It's fabulous.

I quoted David Hare one of his lines the other day to illuminate whatever point we were trying to make in the conversation, and I said 'What play was that?' and he said 'It was your line, you said it about a hundred and fifty times in The Vertical Hour.'

I don't even own a car.