I think if I had come out of drama school and been an instant Hollywood superstar, I would be taking long, leisurely holidays.

I think if I had come out of drama school and been an instant Hollywood superstar, I would be taking long, leisurely holidays.

You can have your beliefs, but if you're not devout, you can't quite believe that something which grows out of a story, a book or a piece of literature can rise to dominate and make entire nations go to war with each other. I think that's endlessly fascinating, and it's a human construct. It's something that's constructed to occupy the mind and occupy society, and some people would say to control society.

I know what Twitter is; I don't use it. I don't use Facebook, so luckily, it does zero to my ego.

Adults will not necessarily laugh at the same thing as their children.

Tolkien was, I believe, writing about his experience in the First and Second World Wars, where he would have spent a lot of time without any female contact. He was part of the fellowship of men who went to war, and I think, really, that's what he's writing about.

The war we are fighting today against terrorism is a multifaceted fight. We have to use every tool in our toolkit to wage this war - diplomacy, finance, intelligence, law enforcement, and of course, military power - and we are developing new tools as we go along.