I've always loved writing. It was always what I wanted to do.

I can remember, after I started doing films, my mum began going to more arthouse films. She went to see 'Edward Scissorhands' and phoned me up and said: 'What was that all about? He had scissors on his hands.' Good question. I think she should review films on Channel 4.

I could, of course, have written about the film world and the jealousy there and the frequent belief that others don't have talent. But, for some reason, it just struck me to write about art.

I've always tended to write comedy, but I'd hate to just write some kind of sitcom or a lighthearted series of jokes and slapstick. I wanted to talk about some deeper things within the comedy.

People sometimes say, 'Why do you choose a part?' and sometimes it's not that I chose it but that that was the one that came along.

Before Anna, I'd had a few relationships and I'm glad I've been around a bit. I know where it's gone wrong or know who are the wrong people for me and who I might be wrong for.

I often draw from people in my own experience to base a character on, going back to my days with Mike Leigh.

It wasn't a good idea to work on 'Naked' in the first months of a marriage. I was living apart from my wife in a flat overflowing with books I was reading for the part.

I paint a bit myself. My house in Clerkenwell has a room that is done up like a big installation.

I'm often cast as religious figures, good and bad, such as 'Kingdom Of Heaven.'

I keep myself content by doing lots of different stuff and make sure that my next role is completely different to the last. I just enjoy the versatility of it, the challenge of doing lots of different things. It keeps the job interesting.

I love being a dad.

I must have read three-quarters of 'Anna Karenina' on my phone. Which might be a record.

That's one of the main things I've learned: honesty is paramount. The biggest thing I try and instil in my daughter. My deepest regrets have been to do with times that I've been dishonest. There's nothing worse than getting caught out in a lie. It's excruciatingly embarrassing.

It's certainly not easy having to spend a lot of time apart, and having a five-year-old child who's got to be at school. So we need to learn how to organize our time really well because for months we will be in two different countries.

When I'm sat in the pub with my mates, they've got their stories: Richard and Tracy have split up, they went to Arsenal and this fight broke out... My anecdotes are like, 'I was in this bar, and Michelle Pfeiffer rang, and I had wax in my ear, so I couldn't hear what she was saying...'

For years, I've been mistaken for Rhys Ifans. All the time. People come up and say, 'Notting Hill?' I nearly got beaten up once for not being Rhys.

I think the most beautiful sound is a child laughing.

I believe the path to a long career is to keep the audience guessing. Daniel Day Lewis is my absolute hero from that point of view. I literally will pay to see anything he does because I know it's going to be something different than I have already seen.

Every time I go to Africa, I feel like I hit true north. There is a depth of feeling that I have for the continent, in the richness of the people, the suffering , but also the transcendent joy that is there - it's like nowhere else on the planet.

I talk to God every day. He's very real for me.

Generally speaking, we as black people have been celebrated more for when we are subservient when we are not being leaders or kings or in the center of our own narrative driving it forward.

Not every film I do is going to be like 'Selma,' but every film I do can be edifying, can be something that points toward I believe to be true. I'm not one to shy away from darkness in movies as long as there is light.

If my history, my indisputable British history, has never been visited, where does that put me? If we are only going to look at things that need a revisit, you are wiping me out of this country's history. That is unacceptable to me.