Villains are fun. I think the important thing in playing them is that they don't see themselves as villains. It lets you be a little more expansive.

I play really bad punk rock guitar. Age-old friends; it's just great hanging out with your mates, causing havoc.

I've been to unpretty places with the roles I've played, and I'm attracted to reckless abandon. I like being taken to the edge of my own abyss.

When Howard Marks came out of prison, years later, I met him at a concert in South Wales; I was a young whippersnapper and Howard was kind of an outlaw hero. I said to him - and it's on tape, a cousin of his filmed our meeting - I said, "If you write a book, I want to play you in a movie." He said, "Let's shake on it," and we did. Thirteen years later, there we were, making the movie.

Whenever you're doing film for television and you look at the budget that you have, which is much more constricted than a movie budget, you think, "God, are they going to be able to do what they say they are?"

Film and stage are very different; I don't necessarily prefer one over the other. Every few years, I get a big itch to go back to the theater. To learn humility, to learn bravery and to remind yourself that the pistons that drive your craft are working on full power. And to remind yourself how badly paid actors can be.

If it is not scary, it is not worth doing.