The weird thing about serious acting is I've always done impressions of people, all my life, and I did the thing called a balloon debate. The idea is there's a hot air balloon traveling across the Atlantic and it's going down and you have to give a speech as to why you should stay in the balloon. Six people are going to be chucked out and you want to stay.

When people don't like themselves very much, they have to make up for it. The classic bully was actually a victim first.

Some of the greatest actors have turned superheroes into a serious business: Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson in Batman; Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, the first venerable knights of the X-Men, who have now passed the baton to Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy.

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.

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

If you are at a boys' school, especially, there is a level of bravado that you have to keep up otherwise you'll get picked on.

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