When I left drama school, my fear was that I'd get pigeon holed into comic acting and I did so much to counter it that I got stuck in the opposite.

If I was to say "I'll only do movies," then I'd struggle to find a varied career. My priority is an interesting career, that's why I keep a low rent, I don't go on big holidays, and I keep it very simple.

My idea of quality is my own idea of quality. What I do and what I want to do next is my business. The next thing I fall in love with might be what you think is rubbish.

I've certainly said I don't want to do any more bad guys, then I sit and don't do anything for a while and then think, "Okay, one more."

My career has suddenly started to be the one that I'd always wanted, not in terms of level of success, but in terms of - and this is what I've been banging on about - playing different parts in different media. I was very frustrated, in a physical sense, by people seeing me in a way that I wasn't. And I was beginning to find myself boxed into a corner. Hopefully things have loosed up a bit, and I've gotten better and become more relaxed as an actor.

I'm in a position where I'm being continually knocked back for the kind of independent films I want to be in because people don't know who I am.

I wasnt a model schoolboy. Of course, I was forced to sit through Shakespeare and I really got into some of it, though it depended on who was reading it out.