If your dream is to tell stories, interesting stories, play interesting people, that's the bottom line. The people that I play have to be extraordinary.

I am fascinated by Omega's history. Particularly the First World War stuff, when they made watches for the flying corps, and the NASA side of it.

I did an interview once where I was asked who I found attractive and I went on about cartoons and Nala from 'The Lion King' - and it's a bit weird but various of my ex-girlfriends actually did look like Nala.

Velvet is great. It's warm as well. And it's snug.

My first film, 'Like Minds,' was with Toni Colette, who was extraordinary. I mean it was basically a mini-masterclass for acting on film at a time when all you could probably see were my eyebrows bouncing up and down on screen.

As a runner on a film, you are the lowest of the low, and yet you have incredible access to everyone. I can totally imagine that for actors in the middle of a Hollywood bubble, all they really want is a sense of normality, and that gopher can be a tap for that.

I've played women since I was a kid and I've always enjoyed it.

Actors who perhaps are super-confident and have absolute belief in themselves I always admire, because I can't really be like that. Because you never know what's right: what you feel inside versus what is portrayed.

They're such hierarchical things, film sets, they're sort of mini societies. Often they're incredibly political places.

When you're doing a film that has so many effects, you do a lot of it on green screen, and you can't see what that world is.

Listen, acting is not surgery, it's entertainment. You're doing something to hopefully move people, to make them laugh, to transport them. But actors are vulnerable, and the reason we're vulnerable is that we're always trying to recreate human behaviour.

For a year after I left Cambridge, I had an agent, and I was working in a pub and doing waitering. But I could stay at home rent-free.

It's the weird thing Eton does - you're at school next to lords and earls and, in my case, Prince William, so you end up being used to dealing with those sorts of people.

Ladies and babies, and mortgages, for that matter, can all wait. Acting has done a strange thing to me, though. I often sit there, thinking, 'I love this, but I wouldn't put my daughter on the stage.'

I'm quite ignorant about fashion and I'm colourblind, so it's all a tad tricky. My only knowledge of that world comes through Christopher Bailey, whom I first met in 2008 when I did a campaign for Burberry that featured musicians, artists, actors and sportsmen.

I had never been to a fashion show before going to the Burberry show last month. It was an extraordinary spectacle. I was incredibly green and had no idea what an undertaking it is. I also have a new respect for models because they are so close to the front row and must be so self-conscious.

What's really interesting about actors, is that we all have opinions on how people's careers look, but I think you never have any idea of your own, or what other people think of you.

I think all actors have a similar deal. You want some people who understand. Although it looks great - and is great - there are also shoddy moments when you feel really rotten, and when it's going well, you're not allowed to complain.

I'm trying to buy a house and set some sense of roots because otherwise you're constantly chasing one job after another, and you look back and you've had all these very extraordinary experiences with extraordinary people, but there's not a line of continuity to it.

When I was living in New York, I had this slightly wannabe bohemian existence and took up painting, at which I'm appalling. I also bought several guitars.

As an actor there's a lot of scrutiny and, even when you've had success, it becomes about sustaining that success. A friend of mine described it as a peakless mountain. Even for De Niro there's Pacino and for Pacino there's De Niro.

Most actors hate watching their own films because all you can see is the glaring mistakes, your own tricks and ticks.

Making a film or doing a play are completely different experiences and entirely fulfilling, but completely unique. I also think one complements the other. People often say that theater is about flexing your muscles, and is actually real acting, whereas I sort of disagree.

A lot of people think theatre must be much harder work than film, but anything histrionic or superfluous gets seen on camera so you have to work to distil it into a complete sense of what's true.

And you can't complain about kissing Emma Watson. Isn't that what everyone in the world wants to do? I've known Emma for a few years. She's this amazing capacity of young and vibrant and brilliant, but also a bright, intelligent old soul.

If you're an English actor and turn up in America, they don't have an opinion about where you sit. They have no idea what auditions to send you to, so they send you to everything.

Two years ago, I shot 'Pillars of the Earth' in Budapest - it was a big part, but I had a lot of time to sit around and visit cafes.

Making 'Birdsong,' on the one hand you have how prestigious it is and the reputation of the book, which is something that's an extraordinary piece of work. Sebastian Faulkes is a genius. So you feel that responsibility when you're portraying that character that he's imagined and millions of readers have pictured.

If your dream is to tell stories, interesting stories, play interesting people, that's the bottom line. The people that I play have to be extraordinary.

I come home from trying to pretend to know about astronomy and physics all day and turn on 'The Real Housewives'.

I've been a closet lover of faux-reality TV since 'The Hills'. It's bad.