You know, this idea of going around the world imposing democracy by growing a middle-class, a trading merchant class that is independent of your faith, is a good notion, but we're all partially different - it's no good imposing systems on people that it doesn't suit.
Seeing a man praying to Allah is enough for some people to assume he is a terrorist.
It's good to be busy on a film set because there is a lot of sitting around, so if you've got two roles to play at one time, then that's great to do.
I have a three-year-old and a four-year-old at home, and my mornings are about just dealing with the fact of that. I oddly enjoy it.
I love playing sport.
I guess I'm just good at playing repressed individuals. I'm lucky because those are often the roles that catch people's eyes.
I don't mean this grandly, but it was never my intention to live in L.A. and do a big network show.
Quiet people, people who arent given to emotional outbursts, people who are economic with words - theyre also fun to play, but you find yourself needing a laser precision in those roles. Otherwise you just sort of stand around, looking slightly brain-dead. You worry about being uninteresting.
Theres something important, as an actor, about allowing yourself to be approached by people to do roles. People see different things in you.
You have to go where the good writing is.
In the end, there's something of the puritan work ethic about me that roles really must sustain me on an intellectual level.
There are ways of avoiding becoming tabloid fodder and therefore giving people license to pry into your private life. And there's a distinction between being an actor and being a celebrity. You may become a celebrity through acting, but you don't need to do so.
My parents were incredibly inclusive.
I think you can't be really posh and be an interesting actor. I'm a bit of a posh rough.
The best shows succeed because they tap into a national conversation.
It was pretty daunting. Normally, I never go to a gym, but before we started shooting, I thought I'd better. I reckoned I was in really good shape, and then I looked around and I was half the size of everyone else. A lot of these American actors have this - in my view - misplaced view that they have to look like Action Man. The trouble is, they all run the risk of being interchangeable.
Dramatically it's always more interesting to conceal rather than reveal things.
I've done classical theaters. I played Hamlet myself and Romeo.
I'd lived in LA for two years and I said to my agent that I wouldn't do any more network TV, because my family and I had just made the decision to live in England. It would be a whole year in LA shooting network TV.
