Theres something important, as an actor, about allowing yourself to be approached by people to do roles. People see different things in you.

We are not telling Tudor history; we are creating ' Wolf Hall ' from novels, which are already a rereading of Tudor history.

Dramatically it's always more interesting to conceal rather than reveal things.

I was, if you like, a successful schoolboy in that I had a degree of talent in all the required things that make you a success at school.

Quiet people, people who arent given to emotional outbursts, people who are economic with words - theyre also fun to play, but you find yourself needing a laser precision in those roles. Otherwise you just sort of stand around, looking slightly brain-dead. You worry about being uninteresting.

People need revelation, and then they need resolution.

A cricket ball broke my nose when I was a kid so I couldn't breath through it. Before I had it operated on I used to stand on stage with my mouth slightly open.