It becomes more and more popular to call actors who play characters "character actors." But I've always been somebody who is much more invested in who I am playing than how they look.

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 love acting. I really do. I think that's maybe the one thing that is known about me.

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

I have some close friends I keep in touch with. I knit. I watch a little too much TV. I ski, if the weather's right for that. If I can find a group of buddies, I go rock climbing.

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.

I was really not familiar at all with Edward Snowden. I like to get that right out of the way and really learned most of what I know from Oliver's [Stones] script.