There's this thing that's come about that wasn't there when I started acting which is they do this thing called a chemistry test. They put a camera in front of two people, it's usually a boy and a girl, and they go, [whispering]. It's impossible. You can't manufacture it or film it, it just has to happen.

The medium is secondary to the stories.

With some films you can sort of slide in, get a haircut and you're in.

I take my hat off to the ladies. The amount of grooming-plucking and shaving and all the other things men never have to do. I went down and spent time with transvestites in London in the clubs and all that. Got an insight to that world, and it's a mad world, but they are very warm and very open people. It was a great experience.

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.

I don't care if people perceive me as always selling out because I'm doing a studio picture. For me, the whole thing is you should be diverse in your choices; that's the beauty of being an actor, you should be able to do that.

I suppose I've always been attracted to this sort of outsider in general - in literature, in music, politics, whatever - and to the person that is able to be relentlessly themselves. I don't think that I have that quality, that strength of mind.