A lot of period dramas can appear quite arch to most people, stuffy.

Americans are a lot more open, of course. There's something more declamatory in the way you express emotions. It's a stereotype but it's true. British people can appear repressed in expressing emotions. Not very good at self-evaluating, or affirming situations, touching, anything like that.

It's quite hard to faze me. I'm fairly un-shockable.

I find it quite hard to sum up my relationship in a sound bite. I feel that it trivializes it for other people's pleasure. It's an adventure.

The performances I enjoy are the ones that are hard to read or ambiguous or left-of-centre because it makes you look closer and that's what humans are like - quite mysterious creatures, hard to pinpoint.

People quit on jobs. They quit on marriages. They quit on school. There's an immediacy of this day and age that doesn't lend itself to being committed to anything.