Myself and Yorgos Lanthimos, we spoke a little bit and I was at a certain body weight that I was closer to making a statement or defining the character physically by losing weight. There was no justification for him to be emaciated, but I thought, say I was 165, I thought what if I went down to 155 and have him rail-thin? And Yorgos was like, "Well, if he's very thin I think maybe it will speak to some kind of psychological trouble that we want to stay away from," and I was like, "F - -, you're right."

You're scrutinized all through your life - you're scrutinized by your family, by yourself, by society, and your friends in a certain way, shape, or form.

Yorgos Lanthimos said, "What about if he's a bit soft?" And I said, "Yeah, I think you're right." He just comfort-eats a little bit too much. He's just asleep in his own life and has let himself go. And the mustache, I don't know if it was him or I suggested it. But I remember my sister was watching me eat and she was like, "God, does he have to be fat?" And in retrospect I couldn't think of David being any other way because it affected the way I moved. It really did. It slowed me down in a way that I felt was conducive to kind of tapping into the spirit of the character.

There was a part of me that felt afraid of people in Hollywood going: '**** Hollywood with their total lack of originality!'.

But we're born as children and we look at the world with open eyes... And we don't judge and we don't betray. We're not jealous. We're not envious. We're not even weary, which is a danger also as kids. They have to learn a certain amount of awareness.

Vampires have always held a very seductive kind of lore and have always been some variety of attractive, whether it's attractiveness that's born of just the physical attributes that they have - this kind of ethereal beauty or translucent pallor - or whether it is more to do with the way they carry themselves.

I love working with horses. People say you shouldn't work with animals and children; that's wrong. You must only work with children, because you only work eight hours a day and I love working with animals. Animals have an honesty that human beings reach to find in their lives at the best of times.