I'm really not interested in showing me or playing me. My gift as an actor, given to me, is to be able to become other people.
I would have liked to do more big movies. And the reason I say that is not because I want to be a star, but what I would have liked to have done is reached a different audience with my work.
I'm three-quarters Russian, so I've always felt an outsider. But I don't think you can be in a play with John Of Gaunt's 'This sceptred isle' speech and not feel proud to be British.
Deep inside, I am desperate to do comedy.
When I was 16, I played Macbeth at school and my English teacher said, 'I think you may have acting talent. Try to get into the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain and see where you get.' I wouldn't have thought of that at all. I wanted to be a surgeon, but I wasn't a clever man.
