All I've tried to do as an actor is follow the good writing. That's been my main drive. It's not always possible, so when you do come upon it, like when I came upon this, you realize pretty quickly this is something you need to be involved with.

You need to be as clean of a slate as you can be, as an actor. You have to try to be open to every experience.

It seemed to work on camera. And there's very few films - because you make a lot of films and you meet people and you work very intensely and intimately and then you're gone - but there's a few where you actually make friends, and this [The Fall] was one.

I'm interested in pressure, I'm interested in duress. All the great works of art, or film or literature, in my opinion, have elements of those in them.

I really feel actors should try and do as much diverse work as possible to try and keep it interesting.

You know, I'm a skinny Irish guy.

Two weeks ago we couldn't pronounce your name, but you were in the lead in a film that made millions, so we're sending you all these scripts.