People love escapism and there should be a place for it.

All acting is an act of imagination. You are simply conjuring up imaginary circumstances in your mind and responding truthfully to them.

I always found the extraordinary loss of life in the First World War very moving. I remember learning about it as a very young child, as an eight- or nine-year-old, asking my teachers what poppies were for. Every year the teachers would suddenly wear these red paper flowers in their lapels, and I would say 'What does that mean?'

The Night Manager doesn't exist in the post-Cold war universe, it exists much more in the modern world, I think. There is more action. The bad guys don't have particularly political or national-political affiliations.

When a new project comes along, I want to know that the experience is going to be challenging and exciting. Part of me is going to be drawn to doing something new and also the satisfaction of intellectual curiosity.

I thought theater people wouldn't see me if I hadn't trained. I didn't want to just be the Brideshead guy, to spend the rest of my life wearing waistcoats. I got the chance to try everything. Not just Romeos, but pimps and grandfathers and even one role as a woman in a Naomi Wallace play called Slaughter City.

Make sure you tell the people you love that you love them. Loudly and often. You never know when it might be too late.