Being mixed in the South, that's a struggle that everybody deals with differently. Some people go careening to one side or the other, and some people try to walk a tightrope between the two. I grew up spending equal time with both sides of my family.

When you hear composer, you think, like, Beethoven: guy in a powdered wig, at a piano, furiously scribbling on manuscript paper. That's not the only image that a composer should bring up, you know. But that's kind of what we've said it is.

I hate genres. I think they're just marketing labels.

I love the U.K. folk scene. In the States, nobody knows what to do with me. There's still a very narrow definition of Americana.

I remember so vividly the first time I saw one of Marshall Wyatt's superb compilations called 'Folks He Sure Do Pull Some Bow' and seeing a picture of a black fiddler and freaking out. I had stumbled upon the hidden legacy of the black string band and I wanted to know more.

Getting into the banjo and discovering that it was an African-American instrument, it totally turned on its head my idea of American music - and then, through that, American history.

When I first heard the minstrel banjo - I played a gourd first - I almost lost my mind. I was like, Oh, my god. And then I went to Africa, to the Gambia, and studied the akonting, which is an ancestor of the banjo, and just that connection to me was just immense.

So my mom's folks are from one side of Greensboro - and, you know, outside of Greensboro. And my dad's folks, the white side, is from another very small town outside of Greensboro. So both sides are coming from the country.

History is my biggest teacher.

I had this dream like years ago. I had this dream - I wanted to be in an all-black string band.

I think that we definitely want to experiment, and if there's a hip-hop song that we like, we'll cover it. We don't want to be one of those bands that's like, you know, you know - Carolina Chocolate Drops does hip-hop. I mean, just know - you know, if it naturally works itself in, you know, cool.

We're not here as a black band playing white string band music. You know, we play stuff in the Appalachians, we play stuff in the white community, but we really highlight the black community's music.

I really got into Gaelic music and the whole sound of it, and I got to go to Scotland.

I mean, my training at Oberlin has been absolutely valuable.

I've reached a point in my career when I can demand certain conditions, and one of them is a weekend break every three weeks during the shoot.

I don't have a problem with green screen at all. I think children invented CGI. We invent worlds. A stick can become a sword. Or a bowl of stones can become a bowl of tomatoes. That's what children do, and that's what CGI enables us to do.

When I'm not filming, I do rock n' roll; when I'm not doing rock n' roll, I do filming.

Each generation needs a 'Spider-Man' to mirror their angst.

If I'd been a rock star, I'd probably now be dead.

I freely admit that I am a bit of a misfit.

Well, I need to be frightened on a regular basis.

I never thought I would be in a film.

I went to the Guilford School of Music and Drama, which was affiliated with the Royal Shakespeare Company. I was lucky enough to be taught by a beautiful, wonderful teacher called Patsy Rodenberg, who works a lot with the Royal Shakespeare Company as a voice coach and technician.

When I was taught Shakespeare in school, it was such an alien, sanitized puzzle, it made no sense.

I don't do celebrity.

Whereas Superman is a godlike guy from another planet and Batman is this mysterious, unknowable billionaire, everyone in 'Spider-Man' is human and flawed.

Howard Marks is a great friend and a great Welshman.

I'm a passionate Welshman. I have a culinary relationship with language: I taste what I say because I have two languages, and each informs the other.

I never think career.

We're in an age of enlightenment, and we have a choice as a society which path to take.

It's a great life being an actor, and I wouldn't change it for anything.

The war on drugs is being lost on a daily basis.

I'm becoming more indulgent and less giving as an actor as I get older. I'm immersing myself more in roles emotionally.

Every species has its pub.

If you've got a camera, go to a war zone and tell a story.

I think Liverpool generates generosity which rubs off - it's a good place to work and to party.

I just don't buy the tabloids.

Acting is not an intellectual process for me. It comes from my heart. It's this strange netherworld of osmosis where I simply become.

I am essentially very shy. Which, I guess, is why I'm very good at not being shy.

I think that all great art never strives to answer any questions; it just asks the appropriate ones at the appropriate time.

I consider projects very deeply, but there's always a point in your life where there's a bit of randomity.

Villains are fun. I think the important thing in playing them is that they don't see themselves as villains. It lets you be a little more expansive.

After you have been incarcerated for so long, whatever story is told in the aftermath is beautiful.

You know you are in a good film when it affects the audience.

I think that Liverpool's particular modern history lends itself to the cinema better than London in many ways. When you go to Liverpool, you absorb that whole sound and humour.

If it is not scary, it is not worth doing.

I work hard and I party hard. When I go to work, I know what I am doing and I do it to the best of my abilities. When I party, I take exactly the same rule book with me.

All punk rockers hate Christmas.

A pub can be a magical place.

If you had to find a period in history that would equate to what the Internet has presented us with now, it would be Elizabethan England. It was a world in flux.