Actor

I am not a big fan of what I call 'ambient television,' which just washes through you in a very polite way. I like television that grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go.

I think the older I get, the less I should be doing.

I wasn't accepted the first time I tried to get into drama school. I said, 'I'll give this one more shot... and if that doesn't work, I won't bang my head against this painful brick wall.'

Ring tones are just irritating, aren't they?

I think the business affairs people at the studios get some kind of perverse satisfaction in finding the worst hotels for actors to stay in.

Somerset is where I call home, and where I feel most myself.

When I started acting, I used to read all the reviews.

Joe Carroll had a certain black comedy to him. But I think it's lovely playing a man who, in his heart and soul, is a gentle man. And he's wounded and complicated.

Ancient Rome was a violent place.

One of the things I like about doing historical films is drawing the line between now and then.

As an actor you have to get used to receiving gentle little pies in the face.

I really do want to just be able to sit in the corner of the pub with my friends... to just be an actor and still go to the supermarket and not get bothered.

If you read Grimm's fairy tales, they're absolutely terrifying.

When you sign up for a show in the United States, it's six or seven years, generally speaking.

I was fortunate enough to do an HBO show, 'Rome,' in which my arc was built in by historical fact, and over the course of 22 episodes, we were able to tell the stories of these people. We had a beginning and middle and end, and as we went on, you changed every week.

Violence is a very ugly thing. Violence is often so casual on film, and made to look so cool and so sexy, but violence is a repulsive, repugnant act that human beings inflict on each other. It shouldn't seem to be cool and sexy, ever really.

We always have relationships in our lives with people we've fallen in love with, who come back into our lives, and we fall in love with them again and go, 'I shouldn't be doing this,' but you can't stop it.

Acting is a way to escape who you are for a short period of time. It doesn't happen all the time , but every now and then, the sensation of being 'other' is very profound. You get this moment where you are no longer yourself. You lose consciousness of the crew or the audience... it's a thrilling moment. And even quite spiritual.

I grew up in a very rural community in England.

I ran into my old friend Michael Kenneth Williams, who I worked with on a show called 'The Philanthropist' for NBC. He was going to be doing this show called 'Hap and Leonard.' He was playing Leonard, and they were looking for somebody to play Hap.