“I had a real yearning to make use of the opportunities I had at school. When I heard about the gap year of teaching English at a Tibetan monastery, I knew I had to do something about it really quickly, otherwise it was going to get allocated.”

Live a life less ordinary.

Maybe it’s because I was an only child, but I’ve always wanted kids.

That’s something I have to work on: to separate what really matters, to conserve energy by not worrying about what other people think.

I’ve said for quite a long time I’d like him to have a different haircut. I quite like my hair being short. You know, we’ve been away two years, let’s f*** around with his outfit, let’s f*** around with his haircut, let’s do something different.

I genuinely don’t know Julian Assange well. To authenticate an opinion, I really would have to meet him.

I think anyone who works in medicine has superpowers.

Kevin Feige said to me: “I don’t think we’ve ever put an actor through quite as much as this, physically and mentally.” I’ll wear that as a badge of honour. It was endless.

I tend to have a cup of tea, try to stop worrying about what I did wrong, cool down and will the audience back in as soon as possible.

Sherlock [Holmes] is on the side of the angels, but don’t think he’s one of them. He uses similar means, but it seems to be for a better purpose, one would hope.

The more charming person is the person who admits the other person is more charming.

Fame is a weird one. You need to distance yourself from it. People see a value in you that you don’t see yourself.

I was the boy that turned a girlfriend into the most celebrated lesbian on television. I got so much stick for that.

If you can’t jump on board when the ride’s going past that’s it, it usually goes by, so the hugest compliment they paid me was to come back to me. It motivated me to try to fulfill their faith.

People’s hands fascinate me. It’s tempting to look at a businessman’s left hand and see if there’s an indentation from a missing wedding ring. Or maybe there’s a tan line and the skin is pressed down where’s he’s worked a ring off his finger.

I can’t stop traffic on Fifth Avenue, not unless I walk in front of an oncoming cab.

I feel that TV and film feed off each other well. It’s more in the perception of the viewer than it is of the actor.