I love the chameleon nature of this business [acting]. I always have. Sometimes I'm not as recognizable as somebody else and I may not have gotten a role, but for me, acting is not a competition. I've just kept my head down and kept working, and had the great pleasure of working with some amazing people and playing some extraordinary and extreme characters.

When you're wearing jeans there's a shift in your center of gravity. A costume like this and a character like this, there's no way to hide. If you try and play him any way sort of modern or normal, you diminish. He's larger than life. He's 150 percent. You've got to go for it all the time. It was just impossible.

The best piece of advice Ive ever been given was, Be in the business youre in. Dont just be a satellite around it and expect it to come to you. Be in the business youre in.

When many different voices send you in different directions, you can't listen to your own.

The way Shakespeare wrote Fallstaff is with a heightened language and everything. That's the genuis of having Ken Branagh here as well. Shakespeare doesn't require you to have a doctorate in his language or whatever to understand him. It just has to be directed and played right. It's all about scale and presence and getting these huge, epic stories across.

I don't give a damn if you like Blackbeard. I don't care if you think he is an absolute despot. Do you believe me? If you do, I've done my work.

There's not a lot of direct back story but you do get to see them playing around each other a lot.