When I was younger, people used to say you only really prove yourself as an actor on stage. And I disagree with that. Some of the finest acting I've ever come across has been for film.
When I look back, if I'd played something differently, it might not have gone the way it did. So I don't feel like going back to my twenties and changing anything.
Film is very much about capturing the essence of things - if you feel it, and you've got the right person shooting it, it'll come across. Theater's a different animal; it's physically different and requires a different discipline. In the theater, you're mining the same material, constantly honing the same thing, executing it and keeping it alive and fresh.
I'm English and I'm used to coming from a world of period dramas, where there's a very polite restraint to everything. Everybody's sort of sitting in drawing rooms.
Movies are certainly a director's medium, so getting the opportunity to work with really good directors is everything to me.
The medical operations are so challenging because they're so technical, as well. I assumed before we started that we would do the classic thing, when it comes to the operations, that we would do all of these inserts with real doctors.
I'm competitive with myself, not at the expense of everything around me. I never wanted to be a movie star. I just wanted to act.
America's been very, very good to me. I've been very lucky and worked a lot there, and appreciate and love the work that I've done.
I go home to London in between jobs, and in London, my life has nothing to do with the business. It's a family life, hanging with friends.
Something I don't like seeing in other people is naked ambition, when somebody is really pushing hard to get to where they want to be. That's the way I look at that word - like you must be stepping on someone to get there. And I've never been comfortable with that.
No matter who the character is and how big their role, that each person in the story is a human being and deserves respect. Even if they're in the story for ten seconds, I didn't want you to just see them as this entity passing through that's serving all of the other people.
I believe that we live in a time of fractured families where maybe fathers aren't getting enough time to see their kids because life's complications and hardships get in the way of those things.
I'm one of those actors where usually I'll read a script, and then I'll have a flurry of notes. I'll ask a hundred questions about things, and really get in there and examine it.
When you're doing those operation scenes, you not only have to be on top of the dialogue and the rhythm of the dialogue and what's happening dramatically, but you've got to technically get the rhythm right, so that everything is fitting with the dialogue at the right time. And you're performing the operation to the audience that's watching it. Thackery has to present it, as well. In some ways, that's the most challenging.
I'm a big fan of comedies and dramas, and I watch tons of movies.
I've got an age that I do think of myself.
You come ready to work when you know that you are going to get a couple of gos and it. It kind of galvanizes everything and there is something about it that keeps it very alive.
I don't just like to have 1 take, but not too many. I think it is good to keep it alive.
Very often on films, even without a producer credit, I'll be involved, very early on. I want to be there as the thing is taking shape.
A lot of the projects that I do, I like to be involved with earlier. I just feel that, certainly from an acting point of view, it's easier to do my job, if I'm included in what the intentions are, for why people are doing what they're doing, especially with a director.
One of the things I love, more than anything, is jumping around and playing lots of different parts. I love the variety of playing different characters.
I certainly am not a great believer in over-rehearsing between actors, and certainly not doing the dialogue too much.
One of the views of the [actor's] job is that whatever age you are, there's a role that's about who you are and where you are. There are parts for that age that you can bring things to.
I don't like being consumed by work all the time. I consume myself so much when I do a part that I like to step away from it.
Kids before they're 7 or 8 are like little manic obsessives. They become completely hooked on things and they're slightly crazy.
