I actually wanted to be a writer long before I wanted to be an actor.

I'd like to direct more operas.

Like many Catholics, I was very affected by the personality of Jesus and that impression, pious as it was, has stayed with me.

I hated Sundays when I was growing up in Streatham, south London. Everything closed down and stopped.

Childhood didn't have a big influence on me, really - in fact I spent most of it plotting how to escape.

I love storytelling and I love just relating directly to an audience. That's why we do theatre, it's because we love contact with the audience. We love the fact that the audience will change us. The way the audience responds makes us change our performance.

I would say critically of myself that I am somebody without secrets. Sometimes acting depends on you having a secret. I don't think I've ever had that.