I've got to tell you, I've played real characters before and people always bring up this word 'impersonation,' and I'm never entirely sure what it means.

I get plenty of time to re-engage with the world I'm trying to depict, so I'm not always living in these parallel worlds.

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

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.

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

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 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.