I'm more enthusiastic and excited about work than ever. I know now what I'm about.

I just love doing broader work - I always get asked to do fairly heavy-duty, intense dramas and interesting, psychologically intense characters. But you know [sigh], it’s nice to make people laugh sometimes.

As a fortysomething actor, you reach a plateau of maturity from which you can really get stuck in.

All actors are on the run from some demon or other.

Acting has been gentrified. It's become part of the bourgeoisie. But there was a time when it would be a great scandal if you announced you were going to be an actor.

Actors have a magic gene within them - I think they're the finest descendants of rogues and vagabonds - and it's all too easily forgotten what the acting legacy is.

I subscribe to that school of thespian - to be a wandering minstrel or traveling player, a thing of rags and patches, of ballads, songs and snatches.