“For me it’s always been about the stories, not what medium. The medium is secondary to the stories.”

I loved The Fall; I was kind of obsessed with that show.

Two weeks ago we couldn’t pronounce your name, but you were in the lead in a film that made millions, so we’re sending you all these scripts.

I like the little bit of distance that London affords me and I like living in a world capital. I like having the culture at my fingertips.

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.

And once you’re unafraid with death, I think your capacity for violence is immediately increased. Once you’re unafraid of death, you are a very, very dangerous adversary.

I really feel actors should try and do as much diverse work as possible to try and keep it interesting.

It’s obvious that if you’re going to play a character you need to amass information about that person and about their environment or their era that they’re in and use as little or as much as necessary

I don’t think they’d ever make a movie about Chuck Baker but I’d love to play Chuck Baker

I like being at home with my music and my books. I’ve done all the partying, I’ve done enough partying for four or five people as a young fella. But now I like the quiet life.

From a very young age I had an ambition to be a musician, and to do that professionally. That’s what I pursued until I was about 20, playing in bands that were taken pretty seriously at that stage.

I think you fall out of love with theater while you’re doing your eighth show of your eighteenth week and your body is saying, “Please make this end.”

I’m pretty adamant to do an American accent because you get it immediately.

For me, drama is conflict.

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’m not interested in a good man’s life. I’m interested in contradiction.

I’ve never done a film for the money.

We are all mediums for our own basic truths. All we really have in life is the primal force that moves us through our days – our unvarnished, untutored, ever-present, inborn agency.

Youth is ever apt to judge in haste, and lose the medium in the wild extreme.

The truth is that no matter how many retakes you do, each will be different and that is the nature of any creative medium. There’s no such thing as perfection.

Radio, which was a much better medium than television will ever be, was easy and pleasant to listen to. Your mind filled automatically with images.

I will not restrict myself. I want to do films and TV: both mediums are amazing to reach to the audience and express your art form, and if both are available, then why not exploit them?

Cinema is a medium that can translate ideas. But wood can translate ideas, too. You have wood and then you get a chair. Some ideas are for different things.

Words are such a poor medium when you really want someone to feel something.

In film as a medium, you’re often given a baddie and a goodie and told what to think about them; it’s usually a very definite point of view.