What I love about the East End is that theres a great perseverance, determination and courage. What I dislike about it is that there is sometimes a celebration of ignorance.

My business is not to show anybody anything; my job is just to do it.

I wasn't one of the ones voted most likely to succeed when I was at drama school, but I persevered and concentrated on the acting rather than going to the right parties and getting the right agent. Eventually, after ten years, it paid off.

What I love about the East End is that theres a great perseverance, determination and courage. What I dislike about it is that there is sometimes a celebration of ignorance.

The trick to acting is not to show off; it's to think the thoughts of the character. I was lucky because when I started acting, it was doing jobs above pubs. I learned to act in anonymity, so by the time people saw me, I knew what I was doing. I was crap for years, but no one saw me being crap. It's a trade you learn.

It's a very fascinating thing for an actor to play somebody who is suffering, and you have to express the suffering, but in an inarticulate way and sometimes a dysfunctional way, through violence.

I consciously decided not to be a 'London' actor. Those gangster movies made a lot of East End actors think they were movie stars. And I was very aware that they were going to go out of fashion.