Once you click into a character, to a certain degree, you can do a lot else. You can do other stuff, then come back and click right into the character. It's sort of funny that way, the way the mind works. Once it's there, it's sort of there. For the stage, for example, all through the day, you're not onstage. You're living your life, la-la-la, then the lights go down, then boom! All of a sudden, you're in this thing. There's a kind of reflex muscle trigger that happens, and all of a sudden you're back into the role. It's just getting there in the first place that's tricky.

This is going to sound completely absurd, but I do sometimes feel like the enjoyment of an awards ceremony or the pride in the finished article hasn't ever surpassed the joy of doing the work, of making it. The doing it is really the bit I'm there for.

I think the crucial thing about being an actor is to be doing it.

I believe people instinctively know that about writing, yet people get confused about that when it comes to acting.

I don't ever feel like I've had a moment where I am like, "There it is; perfect and holy in all ways."

I have always been very fortunate in my working life in terms of the, I say that like I've not been fortunate at all in my private life.

I started off doing plays as a theater actor. But I never thought of it in terms of it leading anywhere. I was just trying to be the best actor that I could be in the context of what I was doing.