I remember someone said to me, "Never stand up when you can sit down, never sit down when you can lie down, never lie down when you can be asleep." Those are bits of advice that I haven't taken, really. I've done the opposite of them, but they have stayed with me.

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 experience of working on this show, even though there is so much about sex and sexuality, and we find out a lot of facts and statistics that are very interesting, in their own right, I found that I started talking about relationships more, and the emotions, the difficulties and the challenges. So, I became far more open about that, which I think is probably an indication with the show itself.

What's enjoyable for me, as an actor, is to do as many different things as possible.

I love watching Jeff Bridges act. He's brilliant.

Getting older is a struggle. I always feel that just under the surface of acceptance and enjoyment of the ageing process is a terrible hysteria just waiting to burst out.

A parent can seem very kind and gentle, but as any child knows, as soon as that parent gets stressed, they can suddenly turn and get a bit angry.