I never had a father figure so I never missed it.

I'm a hard-mouthed north-eastern lad. That's me - the Eminem of Northeast England.

I've got lots of weird illustrations of me from Japanese fans.

TV is a big business. In some ways, it's surpassed films, in terms of the way people invest in these shows and invest in these characters, and give up so much of their time to follow these people's stories.

That's just a much more enjoyable and motivating experience for me, when I can see people who are just as obsessed with the idea as I am.

I look at my contemporaries, and we're all at different stages and levels, and all choosing different routes, different ways to do things.

I think as English people, we don't want to be reminded that at one point we ruled three-quarters of the globe, and now we're a very small country that doesn't own three-quarters of the globe.