Joss Whedon writes beautiful drama. His sensitivity and his sense of drama and scenes are pretty exceptional. There's no one else writing like him, really, in sci-fi and TV. That's not to say there are no astonishing writers on TV. I was nervous about coming to America and playing an English person who speaks very English when all the writers are American, because it's a very particular thing to imitate, and if it's badly imitated, it sounds painfully contorted and silly. And he writes very well for English people. It was Joss Whedon who persuaded me.

The phrase you usually hear after a cut is "That was great. Perhaps we could have another go. Maybe try it this way." Even that much direction is prefaced with a lot of praise and encouragement. It's quite like how you deal with toddlers: positive reinforcement, and then a little suggestion that you might want to try something different. Roman Polanski will stop the take and shout, "No, no, no!" Which is somewhat alarming the first time it happens.

It was as big as a Beatles concert, I guess. Friends was unbelievably popular in Britain, and it was incredibly exciting. I had never experienced anything quite like that before in my life. I was honored to be a part of that.

Working with Roman Polanski is funny. It's like anything in life - someone warns you that something's going to be amazing or difficult or awful, and you say, "I can do that. I can cope with that." And then when you're in the middle of it, it may be joyful or tricky, but it's never difficult in the way you think it's going to be difficult.

I wanted to play a TV detective because it's a rite of passage; I wanted to experience every area of acting. I haven't done comedy or as much Shakespeare as I had intended.

Joss Whedon writes beautiful drama. His sensitivity and his sense of drama and scenes are pretty exceptional. There's no one else writing like him, really, in sci-fi and TV. That's not to say there are no astonishing writers on TV. I was nervous about coming to America and playing an English person who speaks very English when all the writers are American, because it's a very particular thing to imitate, and if it's badly imitated, it sounds painfully contorted and silly. And he writes very well for English people. It was Joss Whedon who persuaded me.

Ewan McGregor is a very genial and entertaining man, and Pierce Brosnan is possibly the nicest man in the world. Actually, it was quite a genial set The Ghost Writer, but the weather and the colors and the actual surroundings were oppressive. But it was a created atmosphere. What was so striking is that Roman Polanski had his crew from The Pianist, and we were shooting in Berlin, so there were German and Polish and French people, and I was just sort of enjoying being in this mix of people, all kind of rubbing along together. That felt good.