Please, I need you to save my ass.

It's interesting when you get those roles, which seem like nothing on the page, and you kind of subvert them. It's hard to say no.

There's not a long, entrenched tradition of theatergoing in Australia.

My dreams tend to be like dog dreams. I'm usually so tired that I hardly dream at all. In a way, I do think that the zone one performs in - without getting too ooga-booga about it - it's like that moment when you wake up in the morning and you're emerging from a dream state but you're not quite up. Where are you? Can you hear the birds? Or is that the traffic? It's that zone in which I perform. It’s like one foot in reality and one foot in a dream state. I spend most of my life in that state!

I remember when I was 26. My father died when I was young and my mother didn't have a lot of money, so I thought, 'I want to own a flat by the time I'm 26.' So I worked towards that, literally trying to scrimp and save. But sometimes those plans don't go as you expect.

People love events - they love performances, they love music - and I think Australians are great entertainers.

That's why so many people want to play Hamlet: because it's a completely demarked role, and the actor playing it has to be prepared, through the language, to allow the audience to see into who he is.