You can compare Holmes and Watson to great Shakespearean characters, in a way. They've been played by hundreds of actors over the years, and each one is a different interpretation - the source material can take that form of interpretation.

There's no regret. You can't regret. I mean, I've felt regret but I've also refused to allow regret to sow a seed and live in me because I don't believe it. You feel it, it's like guilt, it's like jealousy, it's like all those horrible things. You've just got to snip them and get them out, because they're no good.

The greatest gift an actor can have is not revealing who he is but through the parts he plays. Unfortunately, we live in a world where everyone wants to know everything all the time and I think it takes away part of the fun of acting that we have to go through that all the time.

When someone like Steven Soderbergh asks you to do a film you know you're in good hands. You know it's going to be slick, and it's going to be intelligent, and it's going to have a kind of style to it, and I would probably have done anything to be really honest.

I think the message of peace is for everyone.

I'm not Tom Cruise. Very few British actors are. If you look at the body of work I've done it's pretty obvious I'm not going to make a 'Mission: Impossible.'

Success, and even life itself, wouldn't be worth anything if I didn't have my wife and children by my side. They mean everything to me.