A lot of these American actors have this - in my view - misplaced view that they have to look like Action Man. The trouble is, they all run the risk of being interchangeable.

I don't mean this grandly, but it was never my intention to live in L.A. and do a big network show.

I have a three-year-old and a four-year-old at home, and my mornings are about just dealing with the fact of that. I oddly enjoy it.

I'm sponsored by Audi, so I have this rather lovely rather arrangement where they just insist that I'm always in the latest model.

I'm always forming bands.

Of course the lower classes have always felt downtrodden and aspired to a better life. But there is this theory that people respond to a class structure in England - there was a time when people knew who they were and knew whom they served and as long as management wasn't abusive, it was a good life for people.

There are lots of different reasons to choose roles.

You can't do something that is morally vacuous or dysfunctional and then write it off saying, 'It wasn't my film, I was just doing a job in it.'

If you only do issue-based drama, you can become a boring wanker.

Dramatically it's always more interesting to conceal rather than reveal things.

Why do you think so many actors are only half-developed people? It's very easy when you're a young actor to have these intense, explosive friendships for short periods of time, because you can control what's shown of you. Then you go on to your next job and reinvent yourself again. I think it's important to find something constant.

The best shows succeed because they tap into a national conversation.

L.A. still ranks as one of my guilty pleasures, along with butter-pecan ice cream and Coldplay albums.

There are ways of avoiding becoming tabloid fodder and therefore giving people license to pry into your private life. And there's a distinction between being an actor and being a celebrity. You may become a celebrity through acting, but you don't need to do so.

My parents were incredibly inclusive.

For me the rehearsal period is the part I most enjoy. It's the creating of the story.

The lesson I learned is that sometimes the task you have at hand needs all of your concentration and focus.

My heroes were all in the theatre.

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.