I guess I'm just good at playing repressed individuals. I'm lucky because those are often the roles that catch people's eyes.

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.

I want to make a clear distinction between people who take acting seriously and people who call themselves actors because theyve been on reality TV or something.

For me the rehearsal period is the part I most enjoy. It's the creating of the story.

Temperamentally I'm not a natural producer, because I don't have the patience.

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.

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