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.

One of the great things about being an actor is that you have a completely different challenge every few months.

I like doing things that are very wildly different. I find that the meat and vegetables of being an actor is doing things that are completely different, all the time.

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.

Ancient Rome was a violent place.

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.

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.