I did quite a lot of fencing when I was a kid, I was a swimmer, and I played a lot of basketball. I was a fencer for Great Britain, but I only did that because I watched Robin Hood, Star Wars, Highlander and The Three Musketeers, and I wanted to emulate Richard Harris and the great British actors that I grew up watching.

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

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.

The marriage between the fantasy and the Westerns is that thing of, if people think you're the best gunslinger around, they're going to come looking for you.

I've been trained by a two-time world champion kickboxer, who's local to where I come from, and who is really just there to keep me fit and healthy while I'm shooting.

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.

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