“It’s great for the people who supported me early on to see the success I’m enjoying.”

Why this character [Doctor Strange] is being introduced, to open up the next chapter. A

Doctor Strange is selfish but he’s still saving lives.

An inflated sense of self-importance? Absolutely, but I think it comes from Doctor Strange need to control things and that’s what happens to all surgeons, I think. There’s a huge degree of uncertainty and bafflement.

I’m sad in a way that the character [Doctor Strange ] leaves [neurosurgery] behind. It’s an amazing discipline.

[Doctor Strange] is a really rich character. It’s an easy thing to have a good old meal every day. It’s great. Yeah, I’m excited.

The number of people my age, younger now, a whole generation younger, who are fiercely bright, over-educated, under-employed and who are politicised and purposeless really upsets me. It’s soul-destroying.

Any privacy in public is a hard thing to negotiate.

Lines are very difficult to learn.

I am shortsighted. I need glasses for watching movies or concerts. It’s not a hipster affectation; I do have poor eyesight. This is how ridiculous my life is: I’ve had the test for contact lenses, but I haven’t found a half-day where I can go to the optician.

I don’t wear a mask, I don’t have a suit. It’s not some CG double or a stunt double. The suffering the character [Doctor Strange ] goes through is immense!

I love theatre, and you learn too much as an actor and enjoy too much of it not to want to go back a lot.

I struggle to learn by rote. I’ve had meltdowns on set. Which is embarrassing and shameful.

I’m always playing characters with intellects profoundly superior to mine. That’s great fun, even though it’s as much a fantasy for me as for the people watching me.

I was very keen to work on the script with Scott Derrickson and [C. Robert] Cargill, and working out the important story beats, changing lines, upping the comedy, changing the pace, all of that was great fun.

I can feel infinitely alive curled up on the sofa reading a book.

[Doctor Strange ] is slightly more specialised than Spider-Man or Superman or Batman, but he’s very loved by people who know him.

The enjoyments of this life are not equal to its evils.

As you are woman, so be lovely: As you are lovely, so be various, Merciful as constant, constant as various, So be mine, as I yours for ever.

I enjoy thelove I receive from my fans and my audience. But I think I know what is realfor me and what is not.

Is it so small a thing to have enjoyed the sun, to have lived light in the sky, to have loved, to have thought, to have done?

Eclecticism is the word. Like a jazz musician who creates his own style out of the styles around him, I play by ear.

Life is to be lived, not controlled, and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.

He (Tiberius) was wont to mock at the arts of physicians, and at those who, after thirty years of age, needed counsel as to what was good or bad for their bodies.

I don’t particularly enjoy publicity, it seems to just follow me around.