I couldn't imagine a home without animals.

I have sleepless nights before press days.

I'd been gearing up to working in theatre since coming out of drama school, but it was an exciting time for TV drama - it was the birth of Channel 4, and Brookside was very cutting-edge at the time.

I like to think I'm a listener, and I'm fascinated by observing people - I suppose you just lock that in.

I think you know what you're up against when you take on a piece that you know is going to involve dragging up a lot emotions - you can end up being deeply immersed in gloom.

It always interests me how obsessed people are about age.

If I want to run around a field when I'm 70, I would like to have that option.

Running gave me a focus to start looking after myself, to eat properly, and focus on building up my strength.

I always start from scratch with a character - they're never based on anyone else. You get ideas of what people look like, and I'm a great people watcher. You can draw inspiration from people.

Whatever I'm doing, I try to give it everything.

Being an actor is an extension of telling a story and I loved story telling as a child.

Freedom is the only thing we must demand in life, for all other good things stem from it

It is we ourselves who alone shall shape our destinies, rising always above the external circumstances and conditions which from time to time shall be thrown across our paths.

Individuality is either the mark of genius or the reverse. Mediocrity finds safety in standardization.

The artist's task is not to alter the world as the eye sees it into a world of aesthetic reality, but to perceive the aesthetic reality within the actual reality. (On photographs by Helen Levitt)

I am very lucky to be surrounded and guided by an incredible support team comprised of my family and agents.

It is not religion but revolution which is the opium of the people.

The notion that I had become a political lightning rod was painful for me to experience.

There are three things without which there is no country--common language, common judicature, and co-tillage land--for without these a country cannot support itself in peace and social union.

I can just sense some eyes, some people kinda stare a little bit like they recognize me but don't quite know for sure kinda thing.