I trained as a theater actor and you had a bare stage and you had to pretend, one prop and you are in the middle of 8th Ave. and traffic is just going by.
Keats himself spoke about how Shakespeare was capable of erasing himself completely from the characters he had created. As an actor, that is what I'm trying to do.
Sometimes you need to put your own characteristics into the actor, and you take different things from the character that you admire - sometimes you can't see the boundaries anymore.
It's really hard because obviously people label you as a British East Asian actor. And I'm just from Salford; it's where I was born.
When a performance isn't working, it's usually because the actor is trying to do something and they're not able to express their idea very well. It's a muddled expression.
For an actor to have a role that they're recognized and remembered for over the years, it's unusual. It's very lucky if it happens once - and it's luck that it's happened to me a couple of times.
As an actor, I endeavor to find the reason in the unreasonable. Because no one thinks they are being unreasonable or unrealistic or demanding or behaving madly. We all see ourselves as being justified.
It's so easy to become obsessed with the film industry and recognition that we can forget that we are not saving the world. We are just actors trying to entertain people.
It's often wrong to write for specific actors because one ends up using what is least interesting about them, their mannerisms and habits. I prefer not to write for specific people.
I don't know if I'd say I feel green, but I'm getting to know myself as an actor now in a way that I never did as a kid.
Oftentimes, actors are looked at as court jesters. They are not looked at as deep-thinking, smart people who do many other things or have gifts in other areas.
There's an inordinate amount of attention put on actors. Some people want to make their lives public, but that doesn't mean everybody does.
It's different when you're an actor and playing a part, but when it's just you, you feel immensely vulnerable have strangers prodding and prying.
When I think about actors I know, I'd much rather hear about who they're shagging than what film they're doing next.
And I think that, of course, there is some dysfunction of needing to be liked or noticed or to feel part of things, something going on there for most actors. For some there's not and I think they really struggle with it.
I think actors are attracted to the idea of other identities and concealing themselves behind some other identity.
I can now shed the child-actor thing, like the fat, and start a new career, because no one sees me as Dudley.
I have done film, television and theatre - all at a pretty substantial level - I don't think it's possible for American actors to do that.
I feel as though, as an actor, you can only make brave choices when you're acting with people that you're so relaxed with that you can make a mistake.
As an actor, if you decide that someone is bad... you can't play bad, because even the worst person doesn't think what they're doing is bad.
You know, as I do, actors who, having become worldwide celebrities thanks to a TV series, complain of their lot and declare themselves ready to drop it all.
