I'm so touched that complete strangers will send me a script asking me to be in their film. That still amazes me - and sometimes for a lot of money too.

I've made many films and only a few times I've played real people.

No man is an island, as they say. No. I've tried it. I've gone on retreats at various times in my life for three or four or five days. I was desperate to get out of there and talk to somebody. But I fly fish a lot, and I can only do that really by myself. I find I'm never lonesome when I'm on a river, far from it, but it's a lonely practice.

I did, although I didn't read from page 1 to page 187 but I read chunks of it. I did a little bit of science when I was in the university so I was able to understand the graphs and pie charts and stuff like that. It was extremely dry.

Every time I see Anthony Hopkins I think that, to some extent, he has just been getting away with it all these years.

Acting is invigorating. But I don't analyse it too much. It's like a dog smelling where it's going to do its toilet in the morning.

I was reared a Catholic but I think every day we ask ourselves, not consciously, what are we doing on this planet? What's it all about?