You dread that there will be real problems during filming.

As an actor, there's a bit of you that's decided you want to be looked at and watched, but there's a paradoxical bit that wants to run away.

I have a great editor and I enjoy, in a masochistic way, being ruthless about my own performance. How do I know, but I think I'm quite good at saying, "That's no good. That's no good. That's it. That's it. That's good." And I'm with the editor who goes, "No, I think you're wrong. That's not your best." There's an initial point in the editing, if you're directing yourself, especially in my case, where you go, "Ouch, ouch, ouch, I can't watch this." And then, there's a point where you become hard-nosed and just take your neurosis away and go, "What's working? That's okay. That's okay. We can lose that, and lose that." You get objective about it.

I was only interested in my scene, and I had to go through thousands and thousands of other scenes. I got my scene and I read it many, many, many, many, many times. That was my research.

You have to just dive over the edge. You haven't got time to mess about.

It's great to be on a set where there's time and there's focus and there's also a kind of adrenaline thrill on a set where people are saying: "We have to get this shot, we've have to go, we've got to move on!"

Performance is made in the editing room, and I've come to see the truth in that - the idea that they say performances are usually made in the editing room because what you film is the raw material. I think just going through the process of saying, "Which take do we use? Why is that the take we want? I want that take can you edit again, I'm not sure that's the one, I think it's this one." And just because you go through that process, I think somehow it's made me sort of more open about the [actor's] possibilities.