If you want to get on in life get off your arse because it ain't going to come to you. And if it does come to you and you're not off your arse then you ain't going to keep it very long.

I had a very real fear of spiders until one bit me. I got bitten by a redback spider in Australia and I've never been frightened of them since. Maybe I've turned into Spider-man.

We sometimes get lost in a bubble... when you get to a certain age you're always thinking about the old days and how it wasn't like that then. Well, yeah, that's great and it's very nostalgic and all that, but actually the world has moved on.

Working with Scorsese was an absolute dream, and one of my favourite ever jobs was 'Beowulf' because it was just pure acting. Your imagination explodes as you try to imagine you're fighting a dragon or whatever.

The greatest dramas in the world are all about sex, violence and death.

The other thing is that when people mention computers - and I'm pretty much the same - they find it hard to comprehend that there's a performance there. They look at it as something that's just been made by a computer but in a way the difference is that when you make a normal film - and I'm simplifying it here - you put on the make-up and you put the scenery in before you start shooting, but with this you still perform in the same way but then you put the make-up on after, along with the costumes and scenery.

There is something about silence and being in the middle of nowhere that is really very attractive.