Surely the job of fiction is to actually tell the truth. It's a paradox that's at the heart of any kind of storytelling.

I choose to give truly of myself, entirely of myself, to the people I choose to do that with, and I can't do that with everyone.

The space and light up there in Norfolk is wonderfully peaceful. I find myself doing funny things like gardening, and cooking, which I rarely do in London.

I'd always liked the idea that drama acts at its best as a kind of arena for debate, not just about the thing itself, but also producing aesthetic, stylistic, political and moral discussions. The Jungian view would be that it affects all of our imaginations and somehow taps into our hidden, ancient, primordial memories.

I think one probably absorbs things like a sponge and things emerge without your always being aware of it.

I'm just a hired actor who was hired for a particular job, but I think one of the joys of reading the script was the way that the personal and the global are woven together.

I don't have the energy or the mental security to get involved with all that. I think it's a good idea to be able to disappear into the story, so that the first thing the audience sees isn't you, but the part.