Anybody who has political ambition has an Achilles heel.

On a personal note, myself, I find religion - I can understand it, I can understand why we have it, as a kind of force on the planet. And I also at the same time think it's ludicrous.

Rather than, as an actor, I want the audience to like me, I'm going to smile beautifully and I've got everybody's sympathy - what about showing the moments when somebody is unbelievably petty? Or really selfish? The faults, the little things, those are the things that interested me about playing the character.

I went to Los Angeles, because I have a manager, and - I can't remember when, but we met in London maybe six months or a year beforehand, and he said, "Listen, if you really want to get a job out of L.A., you really need to come." And I was like, "Well, can't I send a tape or something?" And he was like, "No, no, you need to come."

I did worry about being in a science-fiction show. The bits that I was reading, I felt were funny, and I felt the man was childish, so I really did ask initially, "Is this for kids?" And the thing that came back immediately was like, "Hey, take a look at this whole thing again. This is definitely not for children. How can you think that?"

Jokes are very curious things psychologically.

I was desperate to do more TV and film. Because I considered myself to be a theater creature. A theater animal. I was convinced that I was going to be onstage for the rest of my life. Because it's something I can really do. I thought I was pretty good at it, and it's kind of stupid, but I was concerned that people would go, "Oh yeah, he's very good onstage, I'm not sure he can do television."