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.

People talk about opportunity knocking, but the gate was always swinging in the breeze before I got to the door.

It's good to remind yourself that you're lucky to be working at all. It's very easy to get into the mindset of ingratitude and I battle with it all the time.

I think the only thing I've got going for me as an actor specifically is the fact that I can change.

The reason I live in America is because I mean literally every six or seven years I've done something in England. The last lead I had in an English film I did was 1998. So that's why I live here. It's because I get more work. I'll travel back for radio, you know what I mean. I've just got to consider myself to be living in the middle of the ocean, and that way I have a really nice career, if I'm prepared to do television, radio, theater, and film.

People talk about me in Arcadia and I think I was okay in it but Ive given better performances in other productions that didnt have the same impact. But I knew Arcadia was going to be an event and I wanted to be part of it.

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.