“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 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.

I never really got obsessed about one thing for long. I was a bit of a butterfly and a magpie.

It does get strange when you realize people will hang around for hours to get a glimpse of you doing scenes outside.

I find that most of us actors can’t stand ourselves in any form.

I like getting carried away by what is happening and then decide each scene based on the actors, the set and the light.

One of the best things about being an actor is that it’s a meritocracy.

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

I have great admiration for athletes. They are just like actors in a lot of ways. They have tremendous pressures and conflicts. They have to compete, and they can’t stay home just because they have a head cold.

The armoury of having any academic education does not necessarily set you up for being a good or better actor.

I think people will be curious to see what I can do as a dramatic actor.

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.