A lot of characters now on TV have moved into being anti-heroes, but I wanted to be the hero.

I want to know everything. I'm probably a bit of a pest for the producers because I ask a lot of questions.

There's a great freedom you get when you're making TV that you don't get when you're doing film.

I come from the theater and you normally have four or five weeks to prepare. For me, the fun of the job is to pull yourself into a subject that you know nothing about.

You can't go around saying you're the best, all the time, 'cause it puts a target on your back.

I like to know what the gestation of the idea is, I like to know the foundation, and I do a lot of reading and research.

I always love being an actor for the simple fact that, whenever you do a job, you have to read a lot of stuff that you've never read before, you explore things, and generally you meet experts in lots of fields and you get to absorb that information and make it look like you've done it for 20 years.