The more you think that you are watching a show about sex, the more you ultimately are watching a show about the challenges of just connecting with human beings and being intimate.

And so, in terms of setting the right tone and finding a way of presenting all of these things, that creates a cohesive whole and doesn't alienate the audience, is tough. That's a challenge. And I think the tone of a lot of shows is discovered through experimentation and actually making it. Eventually, it starts to cohere.

Everyone deserves compassion.

In the case of two actors connecting with each other and trusting each other, our bodies have memories without us having to consciously think about it, so rather than think, "Oh, I must think about my daughter dying," you just let that go and trust that you have all the emotions you need in there, and by losing yourself in the scene, that stuff kicks in without having to spend the day thinking about horrific things happening to your own child.

I suppose I've got a reputation for playing quite extreme characters and making them quite believable.

When you come to actually act, it's a game. It may be a very serious game, but it's still a game. If you lose that sense of play, the work suffers.

We live in a bubble of the fantasy of death, but the reality of it is something that we obviously all face and have to deal with, at some point.