It has taken a long time for me to be able to really just be in front of the camera.

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.

Ancient Rome was a violent place.

If you're playing Hitler, you don't play Hitler as an asshole. Hitler believed what he was doing was right. Any of those monsters and any serial killer believes in what they're doing. I play it subjectively.

I don't have much time for real violence at all. I think there are infinitely better ways of changing the world than using violence. Sitting round a table talking is a pretty good start.

Actors are their own worst enemies. They quite often will get in their own way, and I have to be encouraged, endlessly, not to get in my own way.

We start off wearing frilly shirts and britches and being good guys and the heroes. And then as time goes on, every English actor ends up playing bad guys. That's what we do.