“What makes a good animated movie is being able to balance adult and knowing in-jokes and also just out and out funny things that make all people laugh. The idea that it’s actually something that will appeal to a family, that’s the trick.”

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.

Laughing and crying are really similar – what happens to your body. It’s a very similar process in your diaphragm. Like a musician, you have to do your scales once in a while and warm up your voice.

I always seem to be cast as slightly wan, ethereal, troubled intellectuals or physically ambivalent bad lovers. But I’m here to tell you I’m quite the opposite in real life. In fact I’m a f**king fantastic lover.

My own grandfathers were a submarine commander and a ‘desert rats’ tank operator in the Second World War.

I suppose my bodily proportions are quite flattering. I’m ripped, doing something I wouldn’t normally do with my body, or having done to it, involving Watson.

I keep myself amused and others confused

I just increasingly enjoy the quiet moments when I can be on my own with my friends and family, or with a book, having a live experience. That’s really what I crave, and I always have done.

As an actor, to be part of that story’s [Marvel univerce ] terrific. I’ve enjoyed it so much as a fan and now I’m getting to have a go myself.

When I was young I became kind of a party animal. I had a massive crash. My health suffered. I was just overdoing it. That person could not be further from the one who emerged from that earlier experience. I regressed massively.

I’d shift disciplines, whether it was musical instruments or sports or whatever, and it’s the same with that.

There are things that are a given, that you’ve already established, and obviously, visually, certain iconic things that can’t be completely removed, like a certain hat or a certain coat in my case.

New York City is crazy and beautiful and really close to my heart, and I’ve always had dear friends here – family, actually, I would say.

[Season 4 of Sherlock Holmes will be] myopically dark. You’re talking about the end of the universe darkness. You can’t see in front of you and would walk into everything dark.

It’s the same thing, I think, whether it’s breathing or meditation or yoga. And running is a great way of doing it.