Whether you're a believer or not, I think there's a huge value in understanding the quality of redemption.

But it's a strange thing when people judge you because you're not doing some big Hollywood film. Are you suggesting I should be in The Dukes of Hazzard? I mean, hello?

It all felt like a terribly long time. It would have meant that I had to make five movies in five years and if you don't like the movies, too bad. I guess I just wanted my freedom, and I think my life has been incredibly enhanced as a result.

I think everything I do is my early work. I can't wait to get on to the later stuff.

I also wanted to have fun with it. I wanted to have the scope, which I felt Merlin has, in his Machiavellian bi-polar way. He's not to be trusted, yet he is fighting for this great power and is really a master, to some degree, in orchestrating Camelot and King Arthur. He's a strange, dark devious character, and I just wanted to have fun, and get away from the cloak and long beard and pointy hat.

I don't know what my limitations are until I reach them. I look for the challenge.

I think religion might throw up a kind of resistance, but I think if one talks about conditioning we can all kind of understand that.