It's usually, my people speak to your people and then they speak around each other and trade calls for weeks.

I think I did a couple of test commercials that didn't even make it on the air. That's how little I had really done. I knew almost nothing about the camera. In fact, I actually did know nothing about the camera.

I loved working with Malcolm [McDowell]. He's been such an important person in my life. I mean, not just as someone I was married to, which is huge, and the father of my children, which is even bigger, but also as a friend and an inspiration and somebody who probably helped to fuel something that all my reading as a child had already started, which was a love of England and the world of the theater over there, which I became involved with through him and probably because of him.

It was a few days later I came out to Hollywood for a screen test, and so did a lot of other people. So, I really didn't think I would get it. I was definitely the one that was least likely to get it, because everyone else was an already established star.

I still try to do what I've always said I would do, which is say yes to the things that make my heart beat faster, particularly if there's something scary about it.

There's just such a premium on hurrying, and the camera is the be all and end all, and the actors had better hurry up and get it right and get it done.

I'd never studied film. I had movies that I loved and movie stars that I looked up to, but I really had not seen a lot of the great classic films that he felt like he wanted me to see before I took on such a huge role.