It is joyous for any actor to enter other grounds of consciousness and thought. At the end of the day, we just all like dressing up and playing around.

Howard Marks is very intelligent and well read, eloquent, witty, charming. I think it was those qualities that got him through. I was interested to explore that because generally, we perceive criminals as dark, twisted, angry characters. Howard isn't any of those. He was punished for his crime, released from prison, and has lived to tell the tale.

But in reading Shakespeare and in reading about Edward de Vere, it's quite apparent that when you read these works that whoever penned this body of work was firstly well-travelled, secondly a multi-linguist and thirdly someone who had an innate knowledge of the inner workings and the mechanisms of a very secret and paranoid Elizabethan court. Edward de Vere ticks those three boxes and many more. William of Stratford gave his wife a bed when he died [his second best bed].

It is joyous for any actor to enter other grounds of consciousness and thought. At the end of the day, we just all like dressing up and playing around.

I am the least likely person in the world to be in an American football film! Which is why I couldn't say no to The Replacements; I thought it was hilarious.

I work hard and I party hard. When I go to work, I know what I am doing and I do it to the best of my abilities. When I party, I take exactly the same rule book with me.

If I'd been a rock star, I'd probably now be dead.