Comedy is actually very hard. It's hard to choose those moments and know when you can really push it, and know when you should be bringing it back and making it more subtle, and knowing as time goes on, as you do take after take and the crowd around you stops laughing. Whenever you do comedy, you realize you're up against - you're performing next to people who you would think are so unbelievably good at it, that that's a bit of a pressure. But at the same time, it's just fun. It's fun to be able to let out that side of you.

When I'm making a movie, it's making use of my creative juices, and it fills me up with what really is - I think my purpose here is to tell stories. When I'm not, then I really have to learn how to live life and make use of the time properly. I'm not always great at making those decisions, but when it comes to working, my time is totally taken up. I have no option except to get up early in the morning and to work on that movie and to finish. But I take that with a pinch of salt, because I also love my time off.

When I went to Scotland to do another movie, I would sing with a coach up there and then when I went to New York I sang with a coach over there-I mean I've now sung with coaches in LA, New York, London, Glasgow, St Louis and Rio de Janeiro!

So many actors get caught up in their technique, and to be honest, I see it really getting in the way. I see them forcing things. I definitely do my best work when I'm free of that. But I think as an actor, I work really hard in preparing the roles. I spend like 90 percent of my waking moments walking around thinking: "What does this character do? What is his relationship with so-and-so?" Always, really. Too much!

The Phantom, as well as being backed up by that music, it just so was a role that I identified with so powerfully. From the first second that I walked on to perform.

If you just tell the story of what the storys about, then it sparks curiosity, but I think it also arouses suspicion, as you say, that it could be overly sentimental. But it so isnt. And I think it was all about doing the inner work and then underplaying everything.

I was training to be a lawyer... I was president of the law society at Glasgow University, and my bass guitarist was my secretary of my law society; the lead guitarist and writer worked at the law firm that I worked.