“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.”

Maybe it’s just getting older, but I don’t want to miss things.

Not that i had a big arse but even that was toned.

We should have a conversation when we hang up.

Actor is an odd profession, and sometimes people get jealous, but I haven’t really experienced any of that. Everyone’s been really happy for me, which is really, really great.

My massive motivation in life is to make parents proud. But even that has to stop at a point.

I got live tweeted once by someone who was opposite my home in some rented accommodation. He was actually describing on twitter what I was doing. ‘I took a shirt off, I went to the window, I put a shirt back on… ‘ And I’ve got blinds in my flat!

We all want to escape our circumstances, don’t we? Especially if you are an actor.

All the backstories are there but not talked about.

I am a PR disaster because I talk too much.

Talking about class terrifies me. There is no way of winning.

Mum did a lot of commercial theatre and farces in the 1980s and ’90s to make sure the school bills were paid.

It still makes me giggle that I’m paid to act.

Pull the hair on my head the wrong way, and I would be on my knees begging for mercy. I have very sensitive follicles.

Writing in French is one of my ambitions. I’d like to be able to dream one day in French. Italian and French are the two languages that I’d like to know.

The awful lesson of history is that we too often ignore people, just because they’re foreigners or different from us.

Conan Doyle is amazing in the way he has Watson describe Sherlock’s posture, mood swings, his hand gestures, and so forth in the novels.

Doctor Strange is an origin story so there’s a certain room for me improving as well as the character improving.

I agree, the world would be a better place if doctors were less enthusiastic about adopting very new drugs.

My dad is a doctor, a professor of psychiatry, and my mum is a psychotherapist.

The clever people at CERN are smashing particles together in the hope that Doctor Who will turn up and tell them to stop

First of all, when you have a doctor who cut the leg to prevent the patient from the gangrene if you have to, we don’t call butcher ; you call him a doctor, and thank you for saving the lives.

…don’t ask me why I know what an Edwardian smoking jacket looks like: let’s just say it has something to do with Doctor Who and leave it at that.

Think of the war against terrorism. In my view, Washington’s approach can be compared to a doctor constantly banging away at a tumor instead of removing it surgically.

What I saw day-to-day is like people who are actually asking for freedom, calling for freedom – protesting, singing, chanting, calling for the removal of the regime – plain and simple.