I'm sure part of the baggage that I bring having played a lot of villains is also pertinent to the movie [Before I Go To Sleep], because I'm sure people look at me and think, "Oh, I'm not sure I trust him or not."

It's great to have the chance to play a character before he goes to the dark side, or the yellow side if you will. Normally, you don't get that opportunity. The narrative of a movie usually demands that you are that guy from the start.

Interestingly, this character [Doctor Nash] is probably closer to me than somebody like the evil Sir Godfrey in Robin Hood or Lord Blackwood who wants to take over the world in Sherlock Holmes. This is a character that's English, he's based in London, and so it's closer to me than a lot of stuff I've been doing recently.

If you think about Shakespeare, you remember Richard III and Macbeth before you remember Ferdinand, whose role is just to fall in love and be a bit of a wimp. I love the baddies. More important, though, is making the baddies somehow, weirdly, understood.

Part of me was fascinated by the idea that I would only get next week's episode a week in advance and wouldn't actually know where I was going with it, until the script landed on my mat. But, part of me wanted to know what was going to happen.

I had this extraordinarily bizarre moment when, two Fridays ago, my missus gave birth to our second child at 11am and by the same time the following day I was sitting around a table with Ridley Scott, Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio in Rabat in Morocco, rehearsing a scene we were going to shoot the next day.

Rowan Joffe was on top of everything. He knew exactly how he wanted everything to be, right down to the fact when I made those telephone calls, I didn't do it afterwards in a studio. I think that's how he operates. He likes it to be as real and as clear as possible.