Some ideas, like what you're going to do with your life, take time to form.

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!

Culture civilizes us, and that's why every single despotic regime has tried to smash [the arts].

The notion of fate and destiny is a very Greek concept. Working in the theater you do think a lot about that, because as a storyteller you do think, 'At what point was this always going to happen and what part have I got a hand in being able to change things?'

We're growing up with a very illiterate bunch of children who have somehow been taught that film is fact when, in fact, it's invention. Hopefully, an historical film will inspire people to go and read about the history but in the end it is a work of fiction and selection. As for the armour itself, no it wasn't particularly comfortable.

Any industry loses its innovation and loses its access to creative juices if you don't have progressive thinking and diversity.

The less one can think about oneself, the more interesting and attractive one becomes.