For me, what makes great actors, always is how truthful they are to the character and the story and the emotion that they're trying to tell.

I like people like Ani DiFranco, a band called Elbow, of course John Lennon, George Harrison, Barry White. I have a lot of different influences and hopefully they all come together and make some sense.

I wasn't into Tolkien at school really. But the story is timeless, the themes that it touches on are contained in cultures all around the world. The innocent on a quest, the pretender, an inanimate object that holds evil - it's really strange that these themes are there in so many different countries' folklore.

I'd be lying if I said it wasn't fun to go to these nights out, like the opening of a film or something, but I dip in and out of it.

I think once you get it in your head, that you're not going to do anything bigger, you just do things that you enjoy, which has always been my ethos anyway.

To play one of the main characters in it, it's not the kind of thing you don't do. Oh, I'd rather not play Pippin in Lord of the Rings... In fact, I'm trying to think - what else would you rather do, you know? I can't actually think of another job that I'd rather do.

I think I have a gift... but I haven't really opened that gift yet and given it to myself.