I always thought of acting as playing chords and notes on a piano. And every human being is born with eightyeight keys. And you know most people just play one set of chords. But when you play another character you are experimenting with your ability to play other notes on the piano. And the piano itself is the human condition, I suppose.

Never stop. Never stop fighting. Never stop dreaming. And don't be afraid of wearing your heart on your sleeve - in declaring the films that you love, the films that you want to make, the life that you've had, and the lives you can help reflect in cinema. For myself, for a long time... maybe I felt inauthentic or something, I felt like my voice wasn't worth hearing, and I think everyone's voice is worth hearing. So if you've got something to say, say it from the rooftops.

To have compassion for a character is no different from having compassion for another human being.

I gave myself permission to care, because there are a lot of people in this world who are afraid of caring, or afraid of showing that they care because it's uncool. It's uncool to have passion. It's so much easier to lose when you've shown everyone how much you don't care if you win or lose. It's much harder to lose when you show that you care, but, you'll never win, unless you also stand to lose. Don't be afraid of your passion.

[on coping with the end of a long shoot]
You get used to it - you have to - otherwise you'd spend your life being heartbroken. But it never stops being sad because for that short time you become a family. You do, you see the same people every day for sixteen hours a day, for months on end, and you're so bound together by your common purpose, which is to make a great film.

I get asked to play a lot of complex people, which is great because I think that people are complex, much more so than any of us are really willing to let on. There is an enormous pressure to conform to what's conventional now, and I think people are quite afraid of individuality, actually.

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