By the margin of fair Zurich's waters Dwelt a youth, whose fond heart, night and day, For the fairest of fair Zurich's daughters In a dream of love melted away.

You have to attempt to be objective about yourself.

When you get to a certain age, the work begins to thin out.

Power is always a corrupting influence. In this mythical time - let's call it medieval, feudal - people in power are dictatorial and don't want their positions of power to be threatened.

I am made Hand of the King which gives me an enormous amount of power, which I use quite ruthlessly - but skilfully - and Dame Diana Rigg joins us [playing political mastermind the Queen of Thorns] and we have a couple of really good sparring moments.

I'm playing one of the principal roles, which gives you more clout and more confidence.

There is a huge fan base, they're very knowledgeable and very loyal. I was astonished - before I started working on the series I didn't know anything about Game of Thrones. I hadn't heard of the books. When it started going out, people were coming up to me in the street saying [fake cockney accent] "oh, Game of Thrones, f------ wonderful.