“[on BBC’s Sherlock] It’s a rare challenge, both for the audience and an actor, to take part in something with this level of intelligence and wit. You have to really enjoy it. It’s a form of mental and physical gymnastics.”

Do awards change careers? Well, I haven’t heard of many stories where that’s the case. It’s a fun excuse to meet colleagues and celebrate people who’ve done well that year in certain people’s eyes, and it’s nothing more than that.

I’ve been broody since I was 12, but I can’t just get anyone pregnant. It has got to be the right person.

I know he [Julian Assange] is a man of fierce determination, and now living under the strain of house arrest in the Ecuadorean embassy as a “political exile,” as he calls himself.

It’s one of the things that attracted me to the role [Doctor Strange] is the fact that it’s a really widely origin story, I mean this is part of it, but of course there’s the whole chapter before where he’s the neurosurgeon who has the accident. It’s fantastic.

I’ve done a bit of live action before but the fight sequences, the wire work and the physical regime were taken to another level [ in Doctor Strange].

I have actual acting scars.

For brain surgeons it’s particularly difficult to deal with failure. It was fascinating to learn about that whole world.

Metaphorically speaking, it’s easy to bump into one another on the journey from A to B and not even notice. People should take time to notice, enjoy and help each other.

I’ve turned up to costume parties in the wrong costume. I’ve made social faux pas a plenty. I’ve put one foot in front of the other and fallen over.

Looking for happiness is a sure way to sadness, I think. You have to take each moment as it comes.

As an actor, you are aware of how a role can seep into your real life.

Having your adolescence at an all-male boarding school is just crap.

I think the characters are supposed to be an open book, blank canvas.

I’ve seen and swam and climbed and lived and driven and filmed. Should it all end tomorrow, I can definitely say there would be no regrets. I am very lucky, and I know it. I really have lived 5,000 times over.

Enjoy the journey of life and not just the endgame. I’m also a great believer in treating others as you would like to be treated.

When you’re a kid, ‘Star Trek’ is a slower burn. It’s funny, it’s entertaining, but it also has a maturity about it – which is its universal appeal, I think.