Once we start shooting, it's in there. You're trying to get into a place where you rise to the work, rather than make it manageable or make it work for you.

I think most people are decent people. I don't know if they could stand the pressure he's under, but most people aspire to be decent people.

I started hitching about the country when I was 16 or 17 years old. I found the music that was played around the country - Irish music - had a particular resonance.

You work for it. You don't have to massage it, so that it fits into the way it has to be. He's just too vigorous a writer and the dialogue is too sparking to do anything other than inhabit it and give it as much truth as you can. You just try to make it part of your DNA. That's what the challenge is, really.

It's interesting going between small parts and then bigger roles where you carry the film. If the writing is good, and if the people involved have integrity, then you'll do it, even if it's only five minutes on screen.

I think it's doubly important, now that we see so many people failing. When the norm is an anti-hero, there's a serious loss when you cannot portray a decent person on screen without it becoming slightly sentimental or feeling like it's unrealistic.

I'm aware now over the last 5 or 10 years that when you do an accent, you really have to kind of get down to the nitty gritty and go into the phonetics of it, if necessary. Find out not just the sounds but the rhythms and the music - or lack thereof - in a particular accent.