When I do go to L.A., it is usually for a reason - to meet with a director or something - but I'm always so happy to go back to London.

The negative about acting is that you have to spend a great deal of time away from your friends and loved ones, but it's not like working a 9-5 job and only having two or three weeks off a year. I may not have seen my girlfriend for two or three months, but then we can spend two or three months together solidly.

I don't think I've reached perfection by any stretch of the imagination, but maybe someday I'll become a perfectionist.

I like to travel, but honestly I really like to just be at home in London and spend time with my friends.

I looked pretty crazy but at the time, you don't think anything of it. You think, "I've got an amazing job. I'm working and this is cool." I remember I was being fit to go to a premiere for something at Burberry and Christopher Bailey, who designs the clothes there, saw a picture of me and I looked weird. I had short black hair, hardly any eyebrows, I looked very very thin and he went, "We need to put Douglas in a campaign." So four days later, I was shooting a Burberry campaign because he had seen me looking crazy from the show so that was kind of funny.

The movie is so fun. I've done period pieces before but nothing with this twist. And the movie is just full of such wonderful people, such young actors - people like Matt Smith that I've been friends with for a while.

Nothing's been changed overnight. It's like watching your cat grow: you see it every day, so you don't really see it change, you wake up one day and it's a bloody great thing. Your friends come round who you haven't seen for a couple months and they're like, "Oh my god, your cat's grown so much again." And I'm like, "Has it?" But when you're living it... I just find that my life has subtly changed bit by bit, so I don't ever really notice it too much.