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

I don't think there's an improvised word in the movie. I hope not because I admire writing. Improvising is kind of gambling. It's just that you're standing up.

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.

I admire David Hare as much as I admire certainly any writer ever. What I like about his writing is it is very conscientiously, in one way, an attempt to reproduce the way people actually speak, but it's not just an attempt at naturalism. It's stylised and it's heightened, to great effect. It's elegant and it's funny and that's the way to my heart, frankly.

Somebody asked me recently, 'Have you done a lot of plays?' I thought hang on. I used to do nothing but plays. I've been very fortunate that on several occasions I've had jobs where I didn't want to be anywhere else in the world whatever you had to offer - however much money you've got.

I've always slightly worried the kids who play football around my house. They know I'm an actor, but felt sorry for me because they'd never seen anything I've done.

Opening a play is just tough. The idea that actors are weirdly protected from it is a myth. If you imagine yourself having to spend two and a bit hours cooking bolognaise, remembering a whole major work by David Hare and speaking it at the correct moment between chopping carrots and stirring the onions in front of an audience - the normal human response is 'Please, can I go to the airport?'