You can't deny reality just because you can't explain it.

I know, for a fact, that I'm a very different person on my own than I am with someone else. We are different with each other. These things are constantly adjusted. And that's true of humans. That's not just true of famous people.

I would absolutely like to play more leading roles. There’s no philosophy - well, the only philosophy, I suppose, is to try and do different things.

I teach for the Book Trust, which promotes reading and writing with children.

When you're training as an actor, a lot of the big work you're learning is to treat fictional characters like real people. You don't have the problem of discovering a backstory with real people, but there's always a mystery which is common to both fictional and factual characters. They are never quite the person you think they are.

What happens is some of the characters I've played have voices that are so different from my own, that it would be ridiculous if I would dip in and out of that voice in between takes to ask for a coffee, or something. Or to gossip about whatever was going on.

I'm very interested in people, so if a character happens to be real, there's that much more to look at.