I've always been more inclined to go out to work than carry on with academic studies.

'Cause I do so much homework I'm good to go on the first take; I don't want to rehearse. I like the element of what's unpredictable of that first take and nobody knows what's going to happen, and I'm a big fan of that.

I came to Los Angeles and did auditions for television. I made a terrible mess of most of them and I was quite intimidated. I felt very embarrassed and went back to London. I got British television jobs intermittently between the ages of 23 and 27, but it was very patchy.

It's more interesting isn't it, if I've got a hedonistic dark side?

I think the fact that us as a race still continues to be very tribal and we haven't really moved away from that over hundreds and hundreds of years of experience.

If I'm playing a murderer, I don't go out and start murdering people.

My goal was for acting to become my main income. I would say to myself, 'I'm good enough'. That became my mantra.