A lot of people think theatre must be much harder work than film, but anything histrionic or superfluous gets seen on camera so you have to work to distil it into a complete sense of what's true.

As a runner on a film, you are the lowest of the low, and yet you have incredible access to everyone. I can totally imagine that for actors in the middle of a Hollywood bubble, all they really want is a sense of normality, and that gopher can be a tap for that.

I think all actors have a similar deal. You want some people who understand. Although it looks great - and is great - there are also shoddy moments when you feel really rotten, and when it's going well, you're not allowed to complain.

Ladies and babies, and mortgages, for that matter, can all wait. Acting has done a strange thing to me, though. I often sit there, thinking, 'I love this, but I wouldn't put my daughter on the stage.'

Up there on the screen, we can all fly. But down here on earth, we need to be each others wings.

They're such hierarchical things, film sets, they're sort of mini societies. Often they're incredibly political places.

My first film, 'Like Minds,' was with Toni Colette, who was extraordinary. I mean it was basically a mini-masterclass for acting on film at a time when all you could probably see were my eyebrows bouncing up and down on screen.