My first love is art, and I see a lot of things in an artistic way.
To pursue a career in Hollywood you have to have a personality bypass. Look at the top 20 stars in the world - there's probably only two actors among them. Hollywood's not about you as an actor. It's about your currency, what you 'bring to the table'. And I've never been one to jump through hoops for anyone.
A lot of the characters I play have problems, they are marginalised, they have serious psychological problems, problems with relationships, with childhood. These are big subjects, big subjects. You can't balk at work like that. As an actor, that's as good as it gets.
I used to be a rabid reader, but now it's scripts or nothing - network television is quite relentless, and you can't drop the ball.
Acting is probably the greatest therapy in the world. You can get a lot stuff out of you on the set so you don't have to take it home with you at night. It's the stuff between the lines, the empty space between those lines which is interesting.
I want to keep audiences off balance, so they don't know who I am or how to take me. If I duck and weave, as Frank Bruno might say, I'll have a longer shelf life.
We met in Cracker. I played a maniac fan who murders a policeman and she did my makeup. I thought anyone interested in me looking like that must have genuinely liked me.
The script will point you in certain directions and I go the opposite if I can. I try do do one thing and tell a different story with my eyes. I believe what's more interesting is always what's not being said.
I'm in four different films this year, and I have four different accents. I sound different in every film. You have to love a character to play it well, and change in my work is what I want.