I don't plan. I don't think, 'I have to do this kind of part 'cause I've done that kind of part.' I'm not a very good planner.

I was a closet straight. I think I wanted to be gay because I thought it was arty and interesting. And also, I was phenomenally shy with girls.

There's a thing I think children realise at a certain age, which is that if their parents say, 'Don't do it', and they go ahead and do it, they're still not going to die. And I think that's what it is: that no matter what you do, you're not going to die.

I was a dozy boy; I'd like to have been like James Dean, but I was more Arthur Askey - pathetically rebellious in a cheeky, chappy sort of way.

I'm entirely uneducated. I went to public school - public in the American sense - a blue-collar, working-class school. I never got a scholarship, I left when I was 15, never did any exams.

I never went to acting school. I started in the circus, music hall, I was in a group, did kids bits. Ive always had this kind of insecurity being uneducated.

The urge to act became the overriding force in my life. It thrilled me. There's a moment with acting when you're in the groove, and you and what you're trying to do are seamlessly one. That happens sometimes, and I'm really happy it can happen to me.