I like the adrenaline of live performance, whatever that is, appearing in front of an audience of any kind, whether it's one or a hundred or a thousand. It gives you a buzz of adrenaline, its exciting. The thing about that is that you want to make those nerves work for you in terms of an energy that's appropriate for the part and the performance, and not to distract the people who are watching so that they become nervous for you.

I think you always learn something in every character you play onstage, either personally or creatively.

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

In the old patrician world there was a custom once a week you had to eat a meal with your slaves and get to know them as people.

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.

I've done quite a lot of dying on shows and in movies. To have a good death scene though - come on, it's brilliant. I love a good death scene!