I never want to overstay my welcome for any character. I would rather people are excited by the ideas a character generates in them rather than feeling bored and wishing he would just go away.
Rupert Friend
Edinburgh is so cultural and such a beautiful place to walk around.
One of the things I noticed in my career that gave me a lot of happiness early on was realising we don't have any control.
All I would say is that when I've been very down or having kind of a tough time in my life, certain films or pieces of music or books have changed that. They've taken me out of a dark place and put me into a more positive one. And I think that if we can do that for people, then it's certainly worth doing.
The Blue Ridge Mountains are an incredible place.
When I come home, all I do is cook. I love cooking, so I go to markets, buy food, cook it for friends. I love doing that.
I'm a bit of a technophobe.
I was asked by this British band called Kairos 4Tet to write lyrics for them. And I wrote lyrics for them. The album is called 'Everything We Hold,' and you can hear my lyrics.
What theatre people love about theatre - and I totally understand it, I just don't share it - is that they feel they mint something afresh every night. Because I would rather do something until I've done it and then know it's done. New day, next thing!
The one thing I couldn't imagine is stopping still.
I'll tell you, there's no goodies and baddies in the world, there's just people with intentions that sometimes clash.
Becoming that guy who does one thing is not very interesting. I'm lucky and proud to have been involved in period films and action films.
There are some great actors I don't want to meet because I don't want to know how they did it. I don't want to know anything about their personal life, and the illusion, or whatever it is, the shape-shiftery magic stuff that they do, which is my joy.
I find the English flag - the cross - quite frightening; it has very bad symbolism for me. Not just football hooligans but supremacists and the BNP.
I'm studying Krav Maga, which is an Israeli form of self defense. It's very deadly and without rules.
I think saying you're bad at something is rather wonderful because then it doesn't matter anymore.
I'm a terrible dancer.
Everybody has many people inside of them. I think we tend to present the one we feel is most appropriate at first in order to gain acceptance or achieve what we want.
I've been a big blagger all my life.
Growing up in England, you're sort of spoiled, in a way. You sort of take it for granted that within a half-hour's drive, you could be walking around a stately home from the 1700s. It's not very hard to do - in California, you've got to take a flight!
I went to a drama club when I was little, but it was more of an excuse to flirt with girls than anything else. We never put on plays.
I think that what drives most of us as human beings is the want for something. You might have a hope, or a big dream, or a goal that you haven't yet achieved.
I've never really thought about settling down anywhere. I like to keep moving.
Eating cold tuna fish out of a tin on a porch while two people are in love across a lake - I think that's desperately lonely.
It might look like some incredibly complicated map to get from English period films to American action anti-heroes, but it really is just about not having a plan.
Sport is not my thing.
Wood is weirdly a big passion of mine. I really love it, all the way from trees to a finished table. The fact that it was alive and that each piece is different.
My father started his own business, and before that was a freelance lecturer, and my friends are artists and musicians; they don't have real jobs - none of us have real jobs.
I'm a dual citizen in a way. I live in the States and have a green card, so my connection to British politics is almost nonexistent.
It's an imaginative thing we do; it's about immersing oneself in one's imagination. If you're a novelist, you do it with pen and paper. We do it with our bodies.
My grandfather, who is English, was a member of a gentleman's club called the Caledonian, which you can only be a member of if you have Scottish lineage.
We have characters in Western television shows who are in full health with shiny hair and shiny teeth, and they go about their lives having minor problems.
One of my uncles took me to my first movie in a cinema - 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.'
Han Solo is more interesting than Superman because he's flawed. Superman's flaw is kryptonite, and that's it. He can make time go backwards, for God's sake, but with Han Solo or Indiana Jones, there's a bit of humanity there.
I find it easier to approach things from a critical angle that otherwise may seem daunting because I'm used to being scared.
I've never got a part in the same way twice. I've never prepared the same way. I've never experienced the filming the process the same way.
I am a very sporadic watcher of television. I don't watch a lot of it.
I don't love plays. I don't love doing the same thing, every night, for 100 nights in a row.
I'm not a big fan of people telling each other what to do, I'll say that.
Seeing, say, 'My Left Foot,' and 'The Last of the Mohicans.' How is that the same person? Or people like Johnny Depp, who can play Jack Sparrow and Edward Scissorhands. I am so interested in the transformation, in not knowing anything about them and watching somebody create a character. I'm not really interested in personalities.
Everybody has many people inside of them; I think we tend to present the one we feel is most appropriate at first, in order to gain acceptance or achieve what we want. It gets really interesting when this technique fails, and other levels are revealed.
I'm always interested in what we're not being shown. So if you're playing ostensibly a quote-unquote 'baddie,' what are their good sides, and vice versa.
I believe that if you can discover something of the truth of a person, then you will start to understand, and to understand is to move towards, if not like, then at least an empathy of some kind.
My great grandparents are Scottish, and I have this very tenuous connection which I try and bump up whenever I can, because I'd much rather be Scottish than English.
The old saying, 'An army marches on its stomach' has never been more true than in film and television. If it's good, cheerful, and exciting and full of great yummy things, then everyone does really well. If it's the opposite, it's very disappointing.
Even if it's a bit blunt, I really appreciate somebody being straight with you.
I was quite solitary for 'Hitman.' I was quite apart. He struck me as a very sad individual. There was a mournful quality there.
I would say that being open to new things is kind of vital in this line of work, if not all lines of work, and being prepared to embrace the challenge of the new thing is something I want in my life until the day it's over.
I really admire artists who take the time to recharge their batteries and not continually call on it. I think you can spot tired and jaded artists quite quickly.
The more I'm committed to finding a way to genuinely be immersed in someone else's life, the more enjoyment there is in it. I've never been interested in smoke and mirrors and cutting corners. I'd rather just do it for real.
