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

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.

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

When children have grieving parents it's also common for them to feel an obligation to cheer them up and make them happy.

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

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

Everything that we have gone through, are going through, and will go through is there in Shakespeare. It is all of human life.