I meet people in my business who have this extraordinary ability to understand human nature in their work, but in real life, they don't seem to have the first clue.
Joseph Fiennes
I was baptised a Catholic and, although I'm not a churchgoer now, I do have a strong sense of the integrity of doing what you believe to be true.
What I love about my work is that I'm forced to look through my character's eyes.
I've got a vendetta to destroy the Net, to make everyone go to the library. I love the organic thing of pen and paper, ink on canvas. I love going down to the library, the feel and smell of books.
There is more meat and mileage in complex characters, like 'Running with Scissors.'
I guess, as an actor, you have to bring something personal to the character - you've got to identify and love one element of the character, or else you can't really inhabit and find ownership.
If you want to make idols accessible - which I think Shakespeare should be - then you have to bring a human touch, make it self-effacing and warm.
I think 'The Handmaid's Tale' always had that power since it was written over 30 years ago. This extraordinary piece of feminist literature had its fan base then, but TV has given it an enormous reach.
Working backstage as a teenager made me realise there's not much glamour in this profession - just lots of hard work. That's a good thing to learn early on.
At home, our parents never compared us. I mean, there were seven of us kids. Obviously, I always looked up to my brother and his work, and I have nothing but utter respect. But I never felt we were in competition.
Give me a sword fight any day.
I think academics are infuriating. For every expert on Shakespeare there is another one to cancel his theory out. It drives you up the wall. I think the greatest form of finding out the truth is through fantasy.
From the age of about five to twelve I was very bad, a hideous little terror who beat people up. I was a member of the Rough Gang - we went around and terrorized all the pupils in school.
I love new writing, new blood, modern works by unknown writers.
I don't know what my limitations are until I reach them. I look for the challenge.
I think everything I do is my early work. I can't wait to get on to the later stuff.
It all felt like a terribly long time. It would have meant that I had to make five movies in five years and if you don't like the movies, too bad. I guess I just wanted my freedom, and I think my life has been incredibly enhanced as a result.
But it's a strange thing when people judge you because you're not doing some big Hollywood film. Are you suggesting I should be in 'The Dukes of Hazzard?' I mean, hello?
I can only put myself in the process and try to learn through the process. Sometimes it will go well and sometimes it won't.
There are always going to be times when it doesn't flow as much as you were hoping. So of course I'm going to fail. And when I do fail I hope I fail better and better, again and again. I am happy to fail.
You know what? Joy is the only guide. I'm going to have fun regardless.
I love life. I'm fascinated by human behavior because that feeds back into my work.
I fall in love with contradictions without understanding. I can't really portray them unless I do. So in a roundabout way I have to fall in love, it's my duty. If love is about understanding and understanding is compassion and compassion is love, I have to have compassion towards the world.
There is a bit of me if I'm pushed in one way I might bounce back and go the opposite.
The great thing about films is that you have access to this whole world of experts who teach you the skills your character's supposed to have.
I like language, and in film, language is diluted by the visuals and the music. Theatre is what I was trained for.
What I don't find compelling is doing classical plays that everyone already knows - and people are following with the text in their hand because no one is listening.
When you wake up, and you see that America has pulled out of the climate deal in Paris, that sends huge messages about putting coal before the planet.
I want my daughters to live in a world where there is equality and parity of pay.
I love to read profiles about people, but I'm interested in their processes. I only ever do them for newspapers that I love.
I love travelling. I love cultures.
The idea that I had a bohemian childhood is laughable.
People call my family a dynasty, but I'm not sure what a dynasty actually is. And I don't feel part of one. It belies the truth of my real upbringing, which wasn't grand at all, and it flies in the face of the fact that, at root, I'm just a jobbing actor.
I think everyone around me played a part in raising me; there isn't one individual I could pick out - it was more a case of it taking the whole village to raise the child.
I am a twin, but my brother and I aren't identical, so it's not such a big deal. But when you share bunk beds and birthdays and a womb with someone, you have a special connection. It definitely feels different from the relationship I have with my other siblings - my twin and I are more connected. Jacob is a conservationist.
I never went into acting to do film. I went into it to do theatre - classical roles.
Film is not as exhilarating, not as physically, mentally, or spiritually challenging, as theatre.
I was thrust, excitingly, via 'Elizabeth' and 'Shakespeare in Love,' into a position one can only dream of, but it was startling, too. I was offered a multitude of roles riding horses in flouncy shirts, and I just thought, 'Hang on, I've just done that. What next?'
I may seem to have worn a lot of tights in films, but actually, those are just the films that have been most visible or worked best. I have worn jeans a lot, too, but those ones haven't tended to work so well.
Doubt is crucial, I think, in every character I have ever played.
I have two sisters that are directors: one's in documentary, one's in film. My mother was a writer and a painter, so I've been surrounded since childhood by dynamic women and female voices in arts.
