I mean, it's fine when you're a kid and someone runs into the playground and goes, 'I've got this great game of pretend,' and you play... As an actor, getting to play, getting to use your imagination and be childish - it is weird but it's wonderful.

I think there was a bit of brotherly love, but I think everything has a motive when you're king. It's all about maintaining that power - securing that power - and I think Edward was very skillful at doing that. I think he was a great king. Opinions are split, if you look at what he's done and written about him.

The actors I respect are the ones who see it as a career and manage to live reasonably normal lives, like Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Less so here, I’ve noticed. I can see why there’s a misconception that it’s easier when your parents are actors, but it doesn’t work out at all. In fact, it’s the reverse.

I think he [King Edward] was a modernizer who was a new thinker. The things he intended to do - unify the country, expand it all from coast to coast - were very modern and radical in those days. Also, the fact that he married who he did and that he managed to deal with the consequences and ramifications of that marriage and stay on the throne until the day he died, that shows skill.

American actors are all muscular, tanned, white teeth and they have this indestructible confidence. We British are all... Dare I say it? Pessimistic.

People often find it surprising that actors find photo shoots difficult, because you're very concerned about what's going on externally in those things when you have to be concerned with what's going on internally as an actor.