I keep mementos from everything I've done.

If you want to do your version, go off and write it. You bring your knowledge to it, and you can use that to shape it and color it, but it's someone else's version of that character. You're not actually playing the real person.

You can't really do a lot of research for being a mass manipulating, murdering super-villain.

One of the things that I was interested in about Moriarty was - he's so manipulative that he doesn't need to commit violence himself or kill people - he can get everyone to do what he needs to do. And sometimes they don't even know that they are being manipulated by him.

Normally death scenes are good, if you have a significant death scene and it means something it's like the audience has an attachment to you being killed that's a good thing.

When preparing for a role, a month is a luxury. Sometimes you've maybe got two weeks before you start on something. So you have to learn how to do it quickly. And the longer you have a role, that it lives in your imagination, the more you're going to be able to contribute when you get on set. Because it's really about your subconscious having time to sit with the part, so you're out doing something and then something occurs to you, you know?

I wasn't aware of my dad being an actor when I was young. I remember there was an Australian children's entertainer on television called Ralph Harris and when I'd say my father was an actor, kids would say, you know, 'oh, is he Ralph Harris?' And I had to say no and then they would lose interest.