With vampires, there is such a great tradition that you suddenly find yourself a part of. Each generation reinvents what that means to them.

Stories have always been the things that entertain me and make me feel happy and sad and move me and give me the experience of being able to live many lives in one lifetime. It's the best thing about being alive.

The first job I ever did in the theatre, I was supposed to be a genius piano player. I couldn't play the piano, but you just sit there at a piano like you're playing, and suddenly all this amazing music comes out and the audience believes you can do it. It's the same with computers. I love scenes where there are people yanking at monitors, "yes I'll put you through now," and you know they're just doing that. But you can look brilliant at all this technology. I love it.

With vampires, there is such a great tradition that you suddenly find yourself a part of. Each generation reinvents what that means to them.

I'm not a Tony Blair impersonator.

For a culture that has such a problem with death, we seem to deal with it in a quite bizarre way. We see people shot, killed and blown up, and we find it funny and sexy and all those things. But, the reality of it is that every day people die, and people are really sad and they grieve and they go through a really difficult process with it.

My tragedy is that all I want is a dog, and yet I have been cursed with cats all my life.