Variety is very, very good. Going from medium to medium, if you get the chance to do it, from theater to television to film, which are all distinctly different, keeps me sharp.

I think the best actors are the most generous, the kindest, the greatest people and at their worst they are vain, greedy and insecure.

The long version of the play is actually an easier version to follow. In all of the cut versions the intense speeches are cut too close together for the audience and the actors.

The ferocity of passion that is engendered by people when they don't like what you've done is really tremendous. It's intense.

I come from the theatre, my bones are in the theatre; it’s as natural as breathing to want to be in the theatre

Frankenstein feels like an ancient tale, the kind of traditional story that appears in many other forms. It appeals to something very primal, but it's also about profound things, the very nature of life and death and birth - about, essentially, a man who is resisting the most irresistible fact of all, that we will be shuffling off this mortal coil.

I feel more Irish than English. I feel freer than British, more visceral, with a love of language. Shot through with fire in some way. That's why I resist being appropriated as the current repository of Shakespeare on the planet. That would mean I'm part of the English cultural elite, and I am utterly ill-fitted to be.