Sometimes you also work with people who don't explain or express to you what they're actually looking for from the shot but you haven't got that problem with this because whatever you're going to do, whether it's good or bad, will get picked up. So, in that way I guess it's pure cinema.

I'm away so much I've had to learn to cook, and I find it relaxing after filming. I make stews and liver and bacon, and an Italian mate taught me how to make a mean puttanesca sauce.

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.

I'm probably not very funny. The scripts just don't come in, or the ones that do aren't that good. I suppose I'm just an old drama queen, really.

Every job I take, within minutes Im thinking, I cant do this. I think its what makes me work. People think I just swagger in and do it. But I doubt myself all the time. Its what pushes me, what makes me work harder. The older I get, the less I take for granted.

But then when you go through the process of making the film and you sit in the cinema two years later and your jaw hits the floor, it's quite sad in a way because you're looking at yourself - facially anyway - and see the way you looked when you were 20.

You do a job like mine because you love the job, not because it's going to make you famous.