It's really important to take time for yourself because if you don't know what it is like to be a real person and spend time with a sense of normality, how can you play normal people in films?

I had friends who ran off to become ski instructors or worked in cool bars, and I often envied them, but I know I'd quickly become bored with that kind of life. I always need to push myself.

I wanted to become an actor. I went to Guildhall School of Music and Drama, which is one of the main drama schools in London where you go when you are older. But I was doing the junior one when I was a kid. And some friends there had agents. I was fourteen and I was like, "I want an agent! It sounds awesome!" I had no idea what that was. I thought those guys looked like men in black. They were hanging around in suits all the time. So I luckily got a very good agent in London and started auditioning. And then when I was 16, I got my first film and I've been working ever since.

I fell in love at 14 and I remember that mad, tense feeling and all the mad things you do for the person - all those extremes and all the stuff you don't mind putting up with.

It's really important to take time for yourself because if you don't know what it is like to be a real person and spend time with a sense of normality, how can you play normal people in films?

Going over to Lesvos in Greece and meeting some of these poor refugees who have just made the treacherous sea crossing opened my eyes in a way I can't even being to describe. It's put a fire in my belly to really try to do something, the little I can do.

I love the challenge of playing characters forced on life-changing emotional journeys. To work on a project with Billy Crudup and Sam Rockwell is just a dream come true.