I knew all about Edward VIII's abdication, George VI becoming the king and having a stammer, but nothing about how he got rid of it.

If in the sex scene you happen to be naked in front of a lot of other people you've just got to put that aside, in the same way that you have to put that aside in a fully-clothed intense dialogue scene because you're entering into that particular imaginative state of play.

I went to England in the '70s, and I was in my early 20s. There was still a residue of that era of being an underclass or colonial. I assume it must have been a more aggressive and prominent attitude 40 years before that, because Australia internationally wasn't regarded as having much cultural value. We were a country full of sheep and convicts.

But as my voice coach keeps saying, if we actually spoke the way they imagine the Elizabethan voice might have been, we wouldn't be able to understand it.

Yes, anally retentive men are my forte!

There's often rarely any dialogue in a sex scene. With your fellow actor, it's good to talk about what the unspoken dialogue is, that's happening in the scene. You've got to play something rather than feel self-conscious or exposed.

When people come and tell me I was terrific in this or that, I do not want to fall flat on my face next time. But, tough, I have fallen flat before. You just get up and dust yourself off.