I’ve always felt kind of safe on stage, protected. I’ve talked to other performers about this and they feel the same things, particularly in the live arena. I never get nervous going on stage to do a play. Doing film or television I’ll have more butterflies.
At the moment I’m doing this space movie, so I’m obsessed with physics and space travel. I know three months down the line it’s gone. Then I’ll be able to superficially say stuff about space.
I’m interested in pressure, I’m interested in duress. All the great works of art, or film or literature, in my opinion, have elements of those in them.
I come from a long line of teachers. Not only did I not go into the family business; I had an aborted law career and I played in bands. ‘Disco Pigs’ was my first professional acting experience.
I suppose I’ve always been attracted to this sort of outsider in general – in literature, in music, politics, whatever – and to the person that is able to be relentlessly themselves. I don’t think that I have that quality, that strength of mind.
I don’t care if people perceive me as always selling out because I’m doing a studio picture. For me, the whole thing is you should be diverse in your choices; that’s the beauty of being an actor, you should be able to do that.
I will always love film, the romance of film, sitting in the darkened room with strangers and watching a story for two hours – that will always remain and never be eroded by television.
All I’ve tried to do as an actor is follow the good writing. That’s been my main drive. It’s not always possible, so when you do come upon it, like when I came upon this, you realize pretty quickly this is something you need to be involved with.
