Dating someone on the opposite end of the happy spectrum teaches you an incredible amount of patience.

I do like dating cynics - they tend to be incredibly funny.

Ignore the naysayers. Really the only option is, head down and focus on the job.

For me growing up, Christmas time was always the most fantastic, exciting time of year, and you'd stay up until three in the morning. You'd hear the parents wrapping in the other room but you knew that also, maybe, they were in collusion with Santa Claus.

I took part in a theatre festival in Massachusetts two summers after I graduated from college. Then I was in Los Angeles thinking: "I'm going to go to New York." I'd decided that I would not have a chance of a film career, so I was about to make the move. I bought a plane ticket and found a place to live in New York, packed my bags and of course the universe "told me" that I was not meant to go. Suddenly, a week before I was supposed to leave, I had three job offers and one of them was my first movie.

Fear runs our lives a lot of the time. You can face it head-on, or you can hide in your bunker.

Ever since I saw sexy Beast I've been trying to get the cockney thing down.