“Claire Danes is lovely and a really great actress.”

“Fame terrifies me. I can say that with honesty. You're terrified that, when people know the real you, they won't like you.”

“I am incredibly self-deprecating. It stems from self-doubt.”

“I left Britain in the mid-1990s when TV was going down the cundy - another good Dundee word - because I wanted a film career. But as I get older, I find myself being drawn back to my roots, and I'm loving it.”

“I love New York, but I have to admit that I feel very English, and I do miss that sense of history that you have everywhere in Britain.”

“I really fell into drama school - I had a lot of lot of luck. I didn't take criticism very well while I was there; in fact, I took it personally. With every note I got, I felt like they were telling me I was a bad person.”

“I was at a school in England, a prep school, from the ages of 8 and 13. And every play they did was a musical. Parents love musicals. And I don't sing. It was driving me crazy. 'We're doing 'Macbeth.' 'Yes!' 'The musical!' And I was always in the chorus, because of course, in all the main parts, you had to be able to sing.”

“I'm a London lad, but I'm fascinated by America. I want to take a motorcycling trip across the country and see those wide open spaces.”

“It's so easy to become obsessed with the film industry and recognition that we can forget that we are not saving the world. We are just actors trying to entertain people.”

“Of all the London theatres, the Donmar is the dream.”

“There's something very special about seeing history so clearly in front of you through that architecture that you just don't get in the U.S. If I was asked to choose where I'd most like to live, I would always choose London.”

“What I like about fairy tales is that they highlight the emotions within a story. The situations aren't real, with falling stars and pirates. But what you do relate to is the emotions that the characters feel.”