I think there's such a thing as a performance gene. If it's in your DNA it needs to come out. For me, it originally came out through music, then segued into acting and came out through there. I always needed to get up and perform.

I don't know if anyone will ever sit beside me on a plane again.

It's always nice to be challenged.

The best roles you have to fight for. You have to really want to do it and you have to go after it.

In terms of trying to improve as an actor, for me it's always important to return to the stage. After doing a piece of theater for a prolonged period, I can think I must have surely improved in some way as an actor - you must be fitter than you were prior to doing it. For me, theater is very, very important in keeping things fresh and dangerous.

I'm Irish and very proud of being Irish, but as an actor, your extraction should be secondary, really. You should be able to embody whatever character it is, wherever the character comes from. That's always been important, for me. I'm an actor who's Irish, not an Irish actor.

At the moment I'm doing this space movie, so I'm obsessed with physics and space travel. I know three months down the line it's gone. Then I'll be able to superficially say stuff about space.