“I’m quite sensitive to people noticing me. There are times when I’m relaxed, then others when it does make me self-conscious.”

It’s always important to have the blessing.

I’ve never been front and centre as an iconic American character [like in Doctor Strange]. Day to day, you know you’re painting on a very big canvas.

I really cannot get over the generosity of our Tibetian teacher. He said, “Don’t punish yourself. You’re going to be a student at a university in the north of England. You need to have your experiences and have your fun, and not judge yourself. Don’t live in guilt and regret.”

Enjoy the journey of life and not just the endgame.

Even though Doctor Strange is an established character, when you’re doing an origin story there’s a lot of room for manoeuvre.

It is a wonderful thing to get married young and become a father.

Marvel always make it fresh so you can give it your personal twist.

It’s an interesting arc. You start with a character [Doctor Strange] who’s likeable and charming but very arrogant and distant. He’s funny but you can see there are massive holes in his life. It’s a very painful transition and all that he becomes is tested so quickly and violently.

I did a lot of acting at school and university, then I went to drama school. It was quite a normal route.

I think playing any iconic role when you’re stepping into big shoes, into the shadow of people who have come before you and you can’t process that.

Landing the role of Stephen Hawking was the most positively surprising thing that has happened to me.

I drive a motorbike, so there is the whiff of the grim reaper round every corner, especially in London.

I’ve always wanted to play a spy, because it is the ultimate acting exercise. You are never what you seem.

I tell my wife all my secrets.

There’s a heroic amount of effort that goes into making him [Doctor Strange] a superhero by the end of the film.

I was brought up in a world of privilege.

A complete life may be one ending in so full an identification with the oneself that there is no self left to die.

If I abuse myself daily, who can I love?

One of the greatest thrills in all of life is to feel the hand of God working through you and to be a part of the working reality of the church engaged in a movement larger than self.

It thereby exercised the power of a self-fulfilling prophecy. In imagining Rousseau to be right, we have become what Rousseau imagined.

Let us be well assured of the Matter of Fact, before we trouble our selves with enquiring into the Cause. It is true, that this Method is too slow for the greatest part of Mankind, who run naturally to the Cause, and pass over the Truth of the Matter of Fact.

With emotional abuse, the insults, insinuations, criticism, and accusations slowly eat away at the victim’s self-esteem until he or she is incapable of judging a situation realistically.

To take the measure of oneself by reference to one’s colleagues leads to envy or complacency rather than constructive self-examination.

Everyone must correct his own self; this is something more difficult to cope with, but it is not impossible.