For one movie, I'm learning to play a violin, and I had never picked up a violin in my life. That's a big challenge. That's what I see as one of the advantages of this business. You get to do things you'd never do, in a normal lifestyle.

I probably wanted to be a shopkeeper, because I like tills.

For your own self-respect and sanity, your creative freedom, you have to be careful that you don't rely too much on other people's opinions of what you do because it can stunt and inhibit you.

On Broadway and in the United States it's very different - people crossover all the time into television. I think that we'll get there [in London] in the end, but it has to start with who comes to see you in the musical and whether they can see beyond the dancing and the singing.

I think it's a slippery slope to fabricate a different life.

I felt alive when I read a script and acted out a scene, or sang a song. It was my dream. I'm just very lucky that I'm still doing it and able to earn a living from it.

Good suits don't come from anywhere, though - I mainly wear Armani, Louis Vuitton and Burberry.