Hitchcock is a big ask. I am playing someone significantly older than me and someone significantly bigger than me. The stuff I find very interesting is why certain physical things have come about. How can he be light on his feet when he is so big? How can his weight vary so much? Where does this rather beautiful voice come from?

You always get told how important the premiere and doing the press is, but I have suspicions.

I work best when a little scared, when there's so much more than the lines to think about.

All of these red carpet events may seem natural for you journalists, but it doesn't feel natural for actors.

You're playing a character in a drama who happens to be based on someone who existed. It's never going to 'be' that person, but it's based on someone well-known, and you want to create enough of that person for it not to be a distraction.

I had to change the shape of my own voice. It was quite hard to pull off and so once I had it, I stayed in Hitchcock's voice all day on set.

We're interested by public personas and private personas, otherwise we wouldn't put on with actors rambling on with the same kind of stuff, over and over again, saying variations of the same thing. I'm always amazed by how fascinated people still are by actors because it's the same version of events that actors describe, all the time.