The most amazing thing is when you find yourself watching someone in the café or something doing something weird. It’s amazing what people do, isn’t it, when you just look at them, when you take the time to look.
I always feel I am in the dark. You are never finished… it is not as if you can look back and think: ah… I know what I am talking about. You are only as good as your last job and are always struggling and striving and you never quite get to where you want to be.
In film, I find it very useful always to do some preparation before you start rehearsals or start shooting, because there’s so much that’s against you on a film set.
Even today, England is a very repressed, repressive country, and there’s pressure to be kind of a certain way, so people do things that ultimately make them sad.
The thing I love about acting is that you can bring something very personal into the open and at the same time remain hidden because you’re always playing a character in a story that someone else has imagined. You’re always protected.
Keats himself spoke about how Shakespeare was capable of erasing himself completely from the characters he had created. As an actor, that is what I’m trying to do.
