If I was to meet Lou Reed or Bob Dylan, I would be totally helpless. Writers and musicians make me feel completely starstruck.

Places like the National Theatre or Sheffield, these great engines of theatre, make us cutting edge because they can be experimental. They can do plays that nobody else can afford to do in ways nobody else can afford to do.

It's very difficult when you're in something to be objective enough about the material to just see it for what it is. You either read too much into it and become too passionate about it, or you're disappointed.

I think all parts come with baggage unless it is a brand new play. If one was daunted by that, you would never do anything.

Actors don't listen to each other. You're so obsessed with what you're saying or doing that the other person could be talking in Swahili and you wouldn't know.

My parents' parents were regular working-class people. I ended up speaking in a certain way, and one gets sidelined into doing certain parts. I think that is really quite narrow-minded.

If I was to meet Lou Reed or Bob Dylan, I would be totally helpless. Writers and musicians make me feel completely starstruck.