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.

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.

I'd like to direct more operas.

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

I don't practise any religion but I am deeply interested in the answers that mankind has come up with to explain the human situation.

Increasingly I've come to think that what's at the core of acting is thinking. Most people would say it's feeling.