The danger with playing a part that defines you is that it swallows up everything else.

My sister and I both benefited hugely from the great security that our parents had given us, and then we went off and squandered it all rushing around in showbiz.

I meet people who are famous, and it's made me realise that fame has huge lifestyle disadvantages. I'm nervous about that. I don't want to become a celebrity.

Nothing else is as fulfilling as playing a part in which you are able to have a significant say in the creative process all the way through. How many actors get to do that? It's extremely rare.

If you're actually being paid to be miserable, and to be as miserable as you can be, that's a very fortunate thing, if you're prone to occasional lapses of spirit.

I do a TV show about a priest in London, and he is also slightly beleaguered and is subject to fate and misfortune and daily difficulty.

I prefer to be flippant about acting, just in case I'm rubbish.