I'm very, very serious about what I do. I think there are a lot of people out there sort of thinking it's anybody's game. You know, "You pick up a camera and you make a movie." My experiences over the years have taught me there's a lot more than that to making a film - there's also getting the film seen, and all kinds of complex realities.

As an actor, you live a little bit of a cloistered life. It's a lonely life. You oddly, strangely find yourself all alone, quite often, with a lot of time to think.

I am a smoker, I'm ashamed to say. I had given it up for many years, then picked it up again. It's a horrible habit. I struggle with myself all the time. And I love to smoke. An actor has to be very, very careful, as one of the most wonderful props - and actors love props - is a cigarette. There's so much to do with it: you can bring it up to your face, play with the smoke. It's just the greatest - ever since I was 16 and in acting school in England, I've been playing around with cigarettes.

I'm very, very serious about what I do. I think there are a lot of people out there sort of thinking it's anybody's game. You know, "You pick up a camera and you make a movie." My experiences over the years have taught me there's a lot more than that to making a film - there's also getting the film seen, and all kinds of complex realities.

I think the funny thing about acting for me - and I hold it in a very holy, spiritual way - not to be overly fundamentalist about it, but it's that important to me - is that it is an ancient healing art.

You have this certain about of responsibility to play a fictitious character and you have a script that's guiding you and the other information of the custom department's choices, and the set department, "Where are you," and all those other pieces of information but you have to cull from your imagination the answer to all the unasked questions. And with a real person, there's someone to get that information from, perhaps.

That's probably the biggest secret of acting: If the actor believes it themselves, they can make you believe it.