I'm a huge admirer of Pope Francis and everything he stands for. I think he's an incredibly connected spiritual and authentic being.

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

I think academics are infuriating. For every expert on Shakespeare there is another one to cancel his theory out. It drives you up the wall. I think the greatest form of finding out the truth is through fantasy.

he challenge is finding the modern conduit for the audience, having fun and really looking at the duality of this particular character, that is both devil and angel, and on the cusp of losing control of the pagan background, to this newfangled religion called Christianity. There's a great backdrop there, and just a whole dark side with the magic.

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

Youth is a predominant factor. We are seeing a young King Arthur, and thereby a young-ish - as I'm into my 40s - Merlin. It was about how to tackle it, from that point view.

I think all experience is, in some way, shape or form, filtered down to help you, in your present moment. With Shakespeare, you're trying to act with a fairly archaic language, although in certain aspects, it's deeply modern.