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 started being interested in acting when I heard the voices of Sir Laurence Olivier and Sir John Gielgud and Sir Alec Guinness. Ive had the great privilege of working with Sir Derek Jacobi and Sir Anthony Hopkins. These are people who inspire the work that I do.

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

It's quite hard for people to just accept that they're very contradictory.

If you've done a brilliant version it becomes something else.

Two billion people watched the royal wedding. Clearly, they're interested in that - the outside of what appears to be lives that have a certain amount of privilege. They have gifts, they have history, they have a sort of unusual and separate position, which maybe involves paying a price.

There is some mysterious thing that goes on whereby, in the process of playing Shakespeare continuously, actors are surprised by the way the language actually acts on them.