If I went to them all dressed up and flashed a nice smile for the cameras it would probably be easier for me to get work. But I just can`t tolerate it.

I always think it`s better to take a smaller role in a great film rather than a leading role in something that you don`t have complete faith in.

I`m currently doing Undeclared an American TV show set in a college. It just got aired and got massive ratings so hopefully that`ll screen in the UK soon.

They cast me because I was known from a TV show and had a big American film coming out. Even English films are geared towards American audiences.

I find aspects of the industry tedious and hard to manage.

In the early part of your career you are always compared with somebody until you can stand on your own two feet.

In a work capacity I`m only interested in acting and producing.

There are so many opportunities in LA.

I watch these actors who when you go to buy a pint of milk you see them smiling on the cover of 20 magazines. Then when you see them in a film it`s hard to believe the character because you just see them everywhere.

Good roles are hard to come by, and whether they`re a few lines or a lead, you snap `em up when they come along.

Well, I have a great deal of pride, and I care infinitely about what my peers think [about me]. It could be my downfall, but I don`t think it is - Hollywood is run on perception, and if you stray off the path of what you want to do with your career, it`s suicide. I have 60 years to make the money, but the choices I make in the next five years are really going to define my career.

I have lived in Los Angeles for four years and I have been in night clubs three times and two movie premieres. I just don`t get involved.

There are definitely worse people to be compared with. I think Brad Pitt makes interesting decisions.

It`s generally more fun playing the villain.

This is kind of my trilogy of madmen. I played the psycho in Cold Mountain (2003), my character in Hooligans (2005) (aka Green Street) is fairly psychotic and now I`ve got this role. On his role in Children of Men (2006).

I`m reading scripts, desperately wanting to work. I`ve set a couple of things up for next year.

I`m happy being an actor, it`s what I have always wanted to do. I`m just lucky I got to do it so early.

I love hip hop music, I make hip hop music.

I bought a house, and I`ve been decorating it.

When some films do not pay as well and you have a mortgage to pay and you are on an economy drive eating eggs and beans, and you are offered a million dollar role and you turn it down, as it is not right. I want to be doing this when I am 60 and getting the big paying roles then so I have to pick the parts that are right for the long term rather than take the money now. [On being picky choosing roles]

No, I do a bunch of things to entertain myself. I paint, I make music, I take photographs.

To which I reply - no different from doing straight sex scenes. There`s no feeling there and it`s really weird with everyone standing around watching.

If I`d seen a grown man beating a crippled boy, of course I`d intervene. If my father died and left my mother destitute, it`s your instinct to take care of her. So when I started to think about it in those terms, it started to make sense to me.

I get invited to literally every single movie premiere that`s going on.

So I try not to do press and if you can keep the balance of keeping a certain degree of anonymity and do interesting work then you can hope for a degree of career longevity.

I was a little bit wary of playing Nicholas. In the script, which I think is true of the novel and the film, he`s the only character not singing and dancing in a musical style. Playing someone who is the personification of good is a little difficult.

The truth of the matter is the real industry is in LA and the cream of the talent is there.

And I just want to work with good directors and good people.

It could be my downfall, but I don`t think it is - Hollywood is run on perception, and if you stray off the path of what you want to do with your career, it`s suicide.