I wanted to be an actor since I was nine years old.

In far Eastern Russia, there's just some towns that time has forgotten. I guess they used to maybe be industrial or something that are now there's just lots of rusty hulks of buildings and a lot of people wandering around, a lot of alcoholism and violence because people have got nothing to do and no work. Yet people were very generous.

I was with a friend of mine recently who was dying and while he was lying there with his family around his bed, I just knew that was it, that was the best you can hope for in life - to have your family and the people who love you around you at the end.

It is always a nice feeling when you are challenged by a scene and you walk out of trailer and you go on set going I don't know. And then half an hour later you're walking back.

I was forced to make the decision between art and music which are the only two things I liked as opposed to being able to do them both because that's what I was interested in.

From there I did a one year theatre acting course in Fife, and then three years of drama school in London.

At school there was no acting to be had other than school plays which I did now and again.