David Mamet we all know is a great screenplay writer and playwright and a great director. If you like him, you like him. If you hate him, you really hate him. He's someone who's into controversy, you know what I mean? That's David Mamet.

I like to be other people, not me. And when you're on the red carpet, it's like, 'Here's Tom Hardy.' I don't want to be me. That's why I play other people.

I'd learned how to lie and manipulate from an early age so a combination of that, desperation, having to have my own fridge and my umbilical cord back... I had to go out into the world. Then some angel somewhere said: "Have you considered going to drama school?" And this sounded like the solution to all of my problems.

I'm from a nice, suburban, middle-class family, but my tattoos remind me where I've been.

My job is to show and tell. If I get better at showing and telling then presumably I get hired more.

I set myself that decision, otherwise I'm driving an opinion at you, and I think that would be treating you like you're an idiot. I don't want to force-feed you my opinion.

We're all flawed human beings and we all have a cauldron of psychosis which we have to unravel as we grow older and find the way we fit in to live our lives as best as possible.