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

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

There are ways of avoiding becoming tabloid fodder and therefore giving people license to pry into your private life. And there's a distinction between being an actor and being a celebrity. You may become a celebrity through acting, but you don't need to do so.

You just have to take control of your own performance.

I've had loss in my life, and I like to think my mother's energy lives on in some faintly Buddhist way. I do find some comfort there.

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.

No Western government has ever played the long-term in terms of foreign policy.