I really wanted to get out of England.

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?

If you only take parts that are offered to you, you end up playing the same roles over and over again. I think it's important to keep auditioning. I think it's important to scare yourself; to take parts that are outside of your comfort zone.

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.

If you don't look like Rupert Graves or Hugh Grant, they'll have you playing the gardener.

Matt Weiner is an amazing writer. He's one of the best, greatest writers that's ever written for television, or just written.

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.