Acting can be a narrow and isolated experience, because you only examine your particular part.

Seeing a man praying to Allah is enough for some people to assume he is a terrorist.

You know, this idea of going around the world imposing democracy by growing a middle-class, a trading merchant class that is independent of your faith, is a good notion, but we're all partially different - it's no good imposing systems on people that it doesn't suit.

It's an unfair comparison because when things are developed in the UK, they're developed at script stage only.

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

It's certainly true that I was brought up in that British amateur tradition, the one which always held that if you were reasonably good at cricket, knew one or two Latin texts and a few zingy Oscar Wilde quotes for dinner parties, you were pretty much ready to go and run some outpost in Hindustan.

I think people like to be scared. I think people like tension and suspense in a movie.