The best revenge against bullies is absolutely, resolutely, never to let them change who you are. Know that whatever bullies say or do - it comes from their weakness, not yours.

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?'

Life is generally pretty damn amazing if you let it be.

The thing about playing gods, whether you're playing Thor and Loki or Greco Roman gods or Indian gods or characters in any mythology, the reason that gods were invented was because they were basically larger versions of ourselves.

Truth in drama is elusive. You never quite find it, but the search for it is compulsive.

Joanna points her camera at a section of society unused to having cameras pointed at it. But I don't know about categorising them in terms of class; I'm a bit wary of that. My dad is the son of a shipbuilder.

The character, as written on the page, is just a blueprint for a human being.