Despite being extremely professional, Michael Caine has a giggle which was lethal for me because once you catch his eyes, once you realize the other person is a giggler too, it's curtains.

My take on people and on the characters I play in Transsiberian, the role you're looking for, is that everybody is more than one thing. We're many things, all of us, and there are times when we are capable of great levity and jolliness and then there are times when the opposite is true.

I was determined not to become an American citizen but I did it for completely cynical reasons: to avoid paying inheritance tax in the U.S.

If there's any plan or scheme on my part, it's subconscious. Whatever I do tends to be very different from the thing I did last. You're terrified of boring either yourself or anyone else. It's always attractive if it feels like something that you haven't done before. I generally tend to be better, I think, when I'm terrified out of my wits.

There were moments where I was being kicked in the stomach, and even though I had this brace on to protect me, I still had to prepare myself for it . You can't be relaxed when that's happening. You have to brace your muscles. I can remember thinking as it was about to happen "Wasn't that how Houdini died?" I think it was.

I never felt I was quite the ticket academically. I always felt I had to put in an enormous amount of effort not to be disappointing. So I worked really hard, but at the time it suited me, because I didn't do very much else.

I did my homework and didn't go out much, and had a very highly developed kitsch fantasy life where I dreamed of being a dancing girl.