Acting is an imaginative leap, really. And imaginations prosper in different circumstances. And it's being able - I can't tell you how one does, but one tries to read those circumstances correctly.

You collect as much information as you can and then you put it into the mulberry of your mind and hope that you come up with a decent wine. Sometimes you do; sometimes you don't.

I am not an enormous believer in research being the be-all and end-all. I get suspicious when I read about actors spending six months in a clinic, say, in order to play someone who is sick.

If I'm in theatre, cinema doesn't even cross my mind. Similarly when I'm making a film, theatre doesn't cross my mind.

In the end, the game is the same. Football is still football. Now, they may play with different formations, they may have a different idea of training, but the game doesn't alter. I don't mind how any performer - indeed, why should I? How arrogant of me if I did? - manages to get to what they have to get to. It doesn't matter how you get there, as long as it isn't going to destroy other people on the way.

Acting is an imaginative leap, really, isn't it? And imaginations prosper in different circumstances. And it's being able - I can't tell you how one does, but one tries to read those circumstances correctly.

A mathematician either has a feeling for equations and an understanding and delight in it, not only in the purity of it, but in its beauty as well. I don't think that's something that you learn at school. I think you can get better in mathematics on a school level, but when you're talking about being a mathematician, I think that's definitely a gift of genes or whatever, you know? Whatever your pool is.