It has to be said that the bad guys are often more interesting than the good guys because you get to indulge part of your nature that hopefully gets subsumed most of the time. But I just like playing interesting characters, and variety's the spice of that, as it is with life, I suppose.

All roads seem to have come back to Doctor Who in our life. But, no, it was a huge part of my growing up. I was a massive fan and it certainly inspired me to get into acting and to be ... one of those people that tells stories on TV. That was a huge part of my childhood.

How galling to watch someone who looks like you, who basically is you, do all the shagging you didn't get to do.

I love characters who are clever and smart, and you have to run to catch up with. I think there's something very appealing and rather heroic in that.

We seem to spend a lot of our time in very small spaces spouting a lot of dialogue very quickly.

There's a morality... I think there's a moral compass but whether that comes from religion or just from being a good person, and where one starts and the other begins... I'm a good person, I hope. But I'm never as good as I want to be, never as nice as I want to be, never as generous as I want to be.

I mean, you know, while I'm acting on stage I'm ranking quite high, but in a room with Barack Obama I'm probably into negative digits. I never feel very famous.