My father came from an intellectual and studious avenue as opposed to a brawler's avenue. So I had to go further afield and I brought all kinds of unscrupulous oiks back home - earless, toothless vagabonds - to teach me the arts of the old bagarre.

I'm here to challenge myself and to see whether I can shape-shift in an environment that's actually quite daunting, but which I think would be nice to shine a light into. The destination of any interesting drama is that you shine a light into a place that not many people know about.

The lack of carbohydrates can make you a little crazy.

I'm into parlor dramas. I'm into theatre. I'm trained for the stage. I trained to do Chekhov and Shakespeare, I was trained for the stage.

I love people. People are lovely creatures. I'm one myself, so I love to see people happy.

Being an only child, I didn't have any other family but my mom and dad really, since the rest of my family lived quite far away from London.

Then there's your diet. You cut out sugars, fat, soy sauces... anything that's nice. Tea and coffee is replaced by boiling water with lemon. It's amazing how quickly you get into it. There's also herbal tea and a lot of water, obviously... about two litres a day.