To enter a theatre for a performance is to be inducted into a magical space, to be ushered into the sacred arena of the imagination.

Shakespeare speaks for the human heart but Dickens speaks for the social man and for injustices.

Many actors have protested about mobile phones going off in theatres, but the real menace now is people texting during a show. It may only disturb a few people around them, but for me, as an actor, when I spot them answering their emails, I am outraged.

I went to Queen's University Belfast and stayed nine months, then I ran away to be an actor.

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.

There is something essentially sanguine about me, which I am inclined to attribute to the fact that I was born by caesarean section. It must affect you.