For a time, I really thought acting was just impersonating. But impersonation is just big brush strokes, really. What makes acting different is empathy.

The only way I survived at school was by doing impersonations of teachers and pupils. That led to me winning a talent competition when I was 16; the prize was three or four gigs in working men's clubs. I was just showing off: at the time, I thought that's what acting was.

In England, I've had a more balanced career directing and acting. It can be quite difficult to juggle the two careers.

I was doing a movie, 'Diana,' and I pulled aside the guy who was making the nose for Naomi Watts and said, 'I'm about to do 'Cyrano.' So he did various Photoshops of different looks that might work. I was really against any kind of 'Pinocchio' theater thing. The way that it's described in the play is this disfigurement.

It doesn't matter how big the set is or how florid the music is: if it doesn't touch people's hearts, then I don't want to be in it.

We've not been able to place these brush strokes into the context of a wider canvas.