The most interesting characters are those you're drawn to, then repelled by, and then come to understand. All that tension - I live that. But I don't plan the tension. It's just something that should happen.

I really wanted to do a comedy. I've done a lot of drama, and comedy was the one genre I was not being offered. So I became obsessive about getting one. I tried with two little parts in comedies that were more mainstream, I was kind of fumbling around, and then I read The Brothers Bloom and knew it was the one I wanted to jump into. Did it take adjusting? Actually, it's not really any different from doing drama.

There's not much room for eccentricity in Hollywood, and eccentricity is what's sexy in people.

The Pagan model of religion because, in the Pagan model, there were lots and lots of Gods and Goddesses. They were all incredibly beautiful and there were statues of them everywhere, which is the equivalent of magazines, or whatever, today. And they were fallible, which is different from being mono-, you know, Jewish or Islam (where) you have the infallible, monotheistic God.

I think actors have a choice of drawing attention to themselves or living on the outskirts.

Well, I'm not at all like the tough, sexy femme fatale in Confidence but it's fun to play people who're really different from you, from different cultures and places. I suppose I'm a bit quieter than most of the people I play.

I was advised by an American agent when I was about 19 to change my surname.