In the end, there's something of the puritan work ethic about me that roles really must sustain me on an intellectual level.

I love playing sport.

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

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.

I always resented Tom [Hardy] for turning up on Band Of Brothers and getting the girl — in fact, the only girl in a cast of hundreds of smelly men! I, on the other hand, spent eight months with my face squashed up against someone else’s backside in one sodden trench after another. And it looks as if Tom might have got the girl again [in Colditz], damn his eyes.

You just have to take control of your own performance.

You know, I think I am faintly spiritual.