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

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.

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.

Maybe more than a teller, I am a story listener. I really enjoy listening to stories. I remember them and keep them in my mind. All of my films are a collection of small stories that have been told to me.

I really enjoy doing music because it’s a challenge to try to reach that frequency and connect with people and get them tuned to what you’re talking about. I definitely respect and enjoy that challenge.

I thought [when I was 16] my days were just going to be spent hanging out on a beach and my girlfriend was going to be Miss Teen USA and my best friend will be a dolphin.

Personally, I really enjoy sci-fi. I watch it, I read comic books, and I play video games. I love this kind of world, so too be able to work in it is a dream. I enjoy it.

Let not things, because they are common, enjoy for that the less share of our consideration.

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.