I began directing episodes, which was a great light every couple of months. We never short-changed our audience, but it became something that you had to work at rather than something that was a pleasure.

Violence is never ever a choice that a man should make.

There's no such thing as "just a domestic".

Having spent so much of my life with Shakespeare’s world, passions and ideas in my head and in my mouth, he feels like a friend—someone who just went out of the room to get another bottle of wine.

Where can I go that would give me the same level of satisfaction as an actor?

Laurence Olivier said if you have ambition to be a serious classical actor, you must be as fit as an athlete. For me, the breakthrough was going to live in California. I exercised. I drank less. It was one of the things about California that had a positive impact on me.

I wasn't campaigning for a role in a Hollywood television series, it was a fluke. So you've got to have a measure of good luck, you really have, being in the right place at the right time.