I was 17, and all I wanted to do was to get away from England and the awful, boring boarding schools I'd been going to there. The last one was taught by monks, and I couldn't wait to get out.

I really wanted to get out of England.

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.

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.

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 get ideas from other people all the time.

I thought if I went somewhere where I didn't know anybody and they didn't know me I could start all over again.