I'm no more or less antisocial than the next person.

I want to make a clear distinction between people who take acting seriously and people who call themselves actors because they've been on reality TV or something.

People need revelation, and then they need resolution.

I'm a slow starter.

I love playing sport.

I love going for a swim. Growing up in England, anywhere with a pool seems like the height of glamour to me.

What I do believe in is the moral code of Christianity.

When I'm working in America, I wake up with an American accent and stay with it all day till makeup comes off. I just want everyone to be at ease, and not have the show's creators think, 'Oh my god, he's so English, why did we hire him?'

It's an unfair comparison because when things are developed in the UK, they're developed at script stage only.

In the end, there's something of the puritan work ethic about me that roles really must sustain me on an intellectual level.

I'd feel guilty just doing gags.

You know, this idea of going around the world imposing democracy by growing a middle-class, a trading merchant class that is independent of your faith, is a good notion, but we're all partially different - it's no good imposing systems on people that it doesn't suit.

No Western government has ever played the long-term in terms of foreign policy.

Temperamentally I'm not a natural producer, because I don't have the patience.

Producing is a world of compromise and actors are utterly spoiled all the time.

I'm very lucky.

Acting can be a narrow and isolated experience, because you only examine your particular part.

I've discovered just how symbiotic the relationship is between writers, directors and actors. They ask the same questions and strip down texts in exactly the same way.

Writing and directing might be a red herring, and really I'm just re-examining what it is to act, to do it well and do it properly.

You can't be sent away to prison for life and feel OK about it.

It's good to be busy on a film set because there is a lot of sitting around, so if you've got two roles to play at one time, then that's great to do.

There's something important, as an actor, about allowing yourself to be approached by people to do roles. People see different things in you.

I think you can't be really posh and be an interesting actor. I'm a bit of a posh rough.

I remember, when I was doing 'Nicholas Nickleby', James Archer came to see me at the interval and said, 'My father would like to see you after the show.' It felt rather as if I had been summoned by the Queen, and I was cocky enough to think, 'Who the hell is he to summon me?'

I suppose where I am sort of reflects the work I have chosen to do. Are there occasional frustrations because I can't work with a certain director because it's a big studio movie, and I don't have enough of a studio profile? The answer is yes. But generall... generally, I have the career I have chosen myself.

I'm very sad 'Life' wasn't a big hit, But it was undone by politics at NBC. It was intense. I moved my wife, and we had two children back to back. So working those hours and living abroad in L.A. was a handful. But it was a great experience.

'24' had to withstand accusations of being right-wing, but 'Homeland' is a far more liberal show.

I loved doing 'Homeland.' I loved playing Brody.

I'm one of those idiots; when I'm working in America, I wake up with an American accent and stay with it all day till make-up comes off.

I went to boarding school, and what that teaches you is to cope emotionally at a young age and to suppress a lot of emotion. Being in the army is, in a way, similar.

There are jobs that come along in your life, if you're lucky enough, that elevate you in a considerable way. And 'Homeland' was definitely one of those jobs.

That's all you can do as an actor - take the best thing available.

I didn't know 'Homeland' was going to be 'Homeland.' I just did it because it was a terrific script, and they pitched me the story line, and I was like, 'Huh, that's interesting.'

It's successful, middle-class Arab men and women, professionals with seemingly happy family lives, who are prepared to go to paradise for a greater cause. That's terrifying.

I think very few people still understand the distinction between CEOs on Wall Street and the hedge-fund billionaires operating separately.

Television audiences are ruthless - look what happened to 'The Killing.'

An interesting insight into the ruthlessness of studio executives: I was having a conversation with Alex Gansa, a creator of 'Homeland,' and I said, 'So you guys must have seen 'Life' and liked me in it, right? That's the most recent thing I've done over here.' And he went, 'No, Damian. You actually nearly didn't get the job because of 'Life.'

I investigated post-traumatic stress disorder. I've been to a unit where people are suffering from it, and I read a lot of literature. I looked at footage of soldiers in the combat zone. I found 'Restrepo' to be unbelievably useful.

I just try to live my life every day by doing the right thing.

It's constantly fascinating for me that something that feels absolutely right one year, 12 months later feels like the wrong thing to do.

I just don't consider myself to be, you know, an American actor. I don't want that life.

My kids think America is swimming pools on the roof, screening rooms, and hot dogs. They love it here.

I found the hedge-fund guys I met all to be very, very concentrated listeners - watchful and articulate and quick to defend, if needed. They all seemed to have this contained sitting posture. The legs, if they weren't crossed at right angles, tended to be close over the knee, their hands put together.

If you pick up an eighteenth-century play, at the top it says 'The Argument,' and then you have a list of characters, and then you have the play. I was just always struck by that - that, of course, good drama is about conflict.

I will always find a defense for characters, and that's why it's fun playing characters that are morally ambiguous, or are at least perceived superficially as being problematic.

There's a high head count on 'Homeland.'

It's important to have a big-enough house in order to have space.

All you should try to do is behave with honour. If you can. At all times.

When I was at drama school, I remember going to Amsterdam for new year and sitting with friends on the front of a P&O ferry in the wind, having some sort of 'Titanic' moment, declaring ourselves to be the new kings of theatre.

I went to boarding school from the age of eight - first to prep school, then to Eton. One thing that kind of education teaches you is community living: there's little retreat. That's why people come out of it and talk about lifelong friendships forged in the furnace.