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.

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.

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

Back in 2005, when I was Christopher Eccleston, we saw one of the largest increases on record, of CO2 in the atmosphere. Unless we keep the rise in global temperature to under 2 degrees, by the time I'm Daniel Radcliffe or wee Jimmy Crankie, I won't be able to save the planet. I won't be here to help you -- well I might, but I'll be that bloke who won Any Dream Will Do.

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

I remember a conversation with my parents about who the people on the TV were, and learning they were actors and they acted out this story and just thinking that was the most fantastic notion, and that's what I want to do.

I often stop when I'm doing something, in the middle of rehearsals or some other job, and I try to take a minute to think "Okay, this might be as good as it gets, so drink it in, appreciate it now". So far, I've been lucky because another job has always come along to equal the last.