It's mainly about working hard and proving to people you're serious about it, and stretching yourself and learning. The mistake a lot of actors make, particularly young ones, is allowing themselves to feel that they're the finished articles, the bee's knees, and it's not true.

I basically have the diet of a 19th-century Irish navy, apart from the litre of stout a day. It's meat and potatoes and bread and cheese: those are my four food groups.

I just want to keep working, really. I just want to keep acting. Playing one part for a very long time builds up in you a desire to play as many different things as you can.

I've not got a girlfriend at the moment. Somebody said, 'Do you worry girls are just giving you attention because of who you are?' I was like, 'I'm 17, it's wonderful.'

No. I am not a royalist. Not at all. I am definitely a republican in the British sense of the word. I just don't see the use of the monarchy though I'm fierce patriot. I'm proud proud proud of being English, but I think the monarchy symbolizes a lot of what was wrong with the country.

Fans are really important for me. And if they take pains to write me, it's the minimum that I answer myself.

Well, I think I’m a feminist, just by the virtue of the fact that I believe in equal rights for everyone.