One of the things I like about doing historical films is drawing the line between now and then.

You need to be disciplined and you need to try to occupy a zone of acting that is always quite scary because you don't think you're doing anything.

I'd never read a piece of television where it's an hour script and it's perfect.

I think I come from a theatrical tradition where, if you look at the great theatrical actors of the British theatre, they took enormous pride in being wildly different from one role to the next. That's the tradition I come from.

My life is really precious. I don't want to spend it watching ambient TV that just drifts through you. I've got better things to do.

I often think that drama helps people feel less lonely about things.

I've never been "celeb-y" actor. You know, you don't catch me falling out of nightclubs at three o'clock in the morning. Well, very rarely! But I find it all a bit baffling, the whole celeb thing and I don't really get it.