I’d like to fight everybody who wants to make war on people. I’d like to fight bullies, actually. I’d like to stand up to the bullies in this world. I was actually mugged once in London, and I was completely defenseless. They came at me with a… I was held at knifepoint. And I felt so angry that I let them do it and I think I’d like to go back and say ‘Look, it’s okay’, and if they tried to stab me, I could just say ‘You can stop that now’.

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.

I don't think anyone, until their soul leaves their body, is past the point of no return.

Every time you consider a job, you have to check in with your inner compass and say, ‘Does this fit in with how I see what the work is for? Is this going to be something interesting and valuable to contribute to the world?’

I truly think any preparation you do only helps and adds dimension and complexity to the work [as an actor].

What le Carré is so good at is unpicking something very specific about Englishness. That is almost part of why I think he wrote the novel. You can feel le Carré's anger that someone who has had the benefits of an English education and an English upbringing is using that privilege to basically do the worst things imaginable. There is an anger in the book about that.

Thor and Loki are defined by each other.