If you ask any actor "What single thing would make you really, really happy?" Among the top five things they'd say is not having to audition anymore.

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.

You get older and you see yourself and say, 'God, he's old, who's that?'

A way of describing performances that I admire is that there is an absence of careerism. It's a clumsy way of describing it but it sort of does it for me.

I find it hard to relax around any man who's got the second button on his shirt undone.

I used to joke that one of the reasons there was a lack of classical work on my CV was because I couldn't operate in those kinds of trousers. Which is a joke, but it's actually also true - if I want to appear in public I want to look my best. If I'm onstage I like to do contemporary work, largely because of the trousers, because of the clothes. I like a decent, what we used to call a lounge suit. Then I can start to motor.

It's more than usually possible that I won't do a play again. But Skylight is one of the great plays in the English language. I was lucky enough to be a part of it at one point in its life, and it's a timely thing to deliver it again in the modern world.