I guess there's nothing I don't like about Merlin, in this presentation. I love everything, even the things I find despicable and abhorrent in Merlin. They're actually a joy to ride on the tailcoats of.

There are a couple of films that I've done, where I've had to get on a horse and wear a pair of tights, so that helped. But, nothing could have prepared me for the fun of wielding magic like Merlin does, especially in the perverted mind of Chris Chibnall.

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 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.

I've got a vendetta to destroy the Net, to make everyone go to the library. I love the organic thing of pen and paper, ink on canvas. I love going down to the library, the feel and smell of books.

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.

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?