I love books.

Nobody's really unsympathetic, I think. People do good and bad things. If a character's totally unsympathetic, they're not real and I'm not interested.

I think it sits quite happily with me, the condition of being an actor. I see some people getting quite eaten up with it, with the insecurities. There are times when I long for continuity and stability, but I also love the idea of not knowing what I’ll be doing next – or even if I’m going to work.

You’d never play Hamlet if you started worrying about who’s played it before you.

As much as I long for a sort of security and consistency sometimes, I do enjoy sort of being busted around. I really don’t know what’s happening sometimes next week, let alone this year.

I’d auditioned for the National Youth Theatre and I didn’t get a place and it was terrifying.

What’s exciting is there’s a curtain that divides the audience from this other world. You want to see behind.

My vanity is I’m terribly romantic! But being married is lovely.

I wouldn’t want to leave it so long before doing a play again, I get very stolid and sluggish if I do too much telly.

Some British actors are snobby about telly, and I don’t understand that.