The thing about running is, if I run in the morning before work, I feel like I'm ahead of the day. Whatever work I've done in terms of preparation or research or thinking about the scene or the character, it all kind of crystallizes in that moment in the morning. And sometimes I have the best ideas then.

Loki in 'Thor' is the most incredible springboard into a sort of excavation of the darker aspects of human nature. So that was thrilling, coming back knowing that I'd built the boat and now I could set sail into choppier waters.

There’s an Iago and a Romeo within all of us. There is that lover, and there is that sociopath.

Our job is to represent the truth of human nature, whether you're playing a tender love story that's set in a coffee shop or whether you're in 'The Avengers,' which is set in a Manhattan which is exploding.

I’m not a big fan of the class system, to be honest. It feels ugly to me. If you’ve got something to say and the work is good, it doesn’t matter where you come from

Heath Ledger's performance in The Dark Knight quite simply changed the game. He raised the bar not just for actors in superhero films, but young actors everywhere; for me. His performance was dark, anarchic, dizzying, free, and totally, thrillingly, dangerous.

I love the acting community at Cambridge. It's really quite committed and serious, since the days of Derek Jacobi and Ian McKellen right through to Emma Thompson and Hugh Laurie.