I always loved movies and the cinema; we always used to go to see films as a family.

A lot of actors find it impossible not to ask for the audience's sympathy. They have a need to twinkle.

Sometimes the weekend gets hijacked by work, but as my mother would say, this is the right problem.

If you're in the movie or in television, your failures are very public, and so are your successes. You weigh them up against each other, really.

The moment I was introduced to my wife, Emma, at a party I thought, here she is - and 20 minutes later I told her she ought to marry me. She thought I was as mad as a rat. She wouldn't even give me her telephone number - and she wrote in her diary: "A funny little man asked me to marry him."

I always like to arrive at the airport early to enjoy breakfast and lounge about so that when I get on the plane all my travel fever has disappeared.

What's difficult for American audiences is that they're used to a system here where you can get an actor for five years or even seven, and that is signed for at the audition. Whereas in England, no agent will give you an actor for more than three years.