TOBY STEPHENS

I'm fair-skinned, so beaches are a bit boring for me. I'm either smeared in lotion or under a shade. However, I do love the sea - diving, swimming and snorkelling.

That's the privilege of being a grandparent - they can indulge the children while parents have to be the bad guy. Grandparents can also be subversive and naughty with them.

If I was to meet Lou Reed or Bob Dylan, I would be totally helpless. Writers and musicians make me feel completely starstruck.

I would love to be in a Jimmy McGovern drama on TV, but there is no way he would ever ask me unless it would be to play a lawyer or something.

I am a Londoner and I love my home. There are many things about this country which drive me crazy, but when I am in America, I feel wrong there.

Growing up, I went to many schools, and I had to fit in to many different types of environments with totally different social groups. It helps me out as I move from job to job.

Screen is satisfying because it's so technical and mysterious. It's like playing roulette: you get a script, you think it's either great or naff, but you have no idea how it will really turn out. On stage, you are your own editor - and you get brief moments of grace, where suddenly you feel free.

I blub all the time, in the most weird situations - not in the ones that should make me cry. Music makes me very emotional.

The Humpback Trail on New Zealand's South Island is really beautiful. It is a 70 km walk over about four days and is fairly arduous. You go through prehistoric forest and up to the top of Humpback Mountain, where there are amazing views down to the Tasman Sea.

I've learnt an enormous amount from my children. Mostly that my agenda isn't the most important thing in the world. For a while, I was trying to squeeze them into my life. And it was such torment! It makes you realise how selfish you are.

I love Scotland, mainly for its landscape. I like walking, and it's a great place to go hiking.

I love travelling with my laptop because I get a bit nervous if I can't access my e-mails.

Actors don't listen to each other. You're so obsessed with what you're saying or doing that the other person could be talking in Swahili and you wouldn't know.

My parents' parents were regular working-class people. I ended up speaking in a certain way, and one gets sidelined into doing certain parts. I think that is really quite narrow-minded.

Places like the National Theatre or Sheffield, these great engines of theatre, make us cutting edge because they can be experimental. They can do plays that nobody else can afford to do in ways nobody else can afford to do.

I think all parts come with baggage unless it is a brand new play. If one was daunted by that, you would never do anything.

You can't learn how to act; you can only really learn it through experience and practice and really finding what your voice is and what you want to be as an actor.

I had a fantastic stepfather, so I didn't resent him in any way, although I was unnerved by him. He was not an easy man, although he was incredibly charming, gregarious, and fun.

As an actor, the only thing you have is your instinct and your imagination.

Since I've had kids, I thank God that I don't drink, as I really wouldn't have been able to cope.

When I met with Anna Chancellor, I knew she was a kindred spirit. We got one another.

On the whole, I don't watch television.

Whenever I'm doing stage, I want to be doing screen, and vice versa.

Prior to doing a 'Bond' film, I was a young actor doing classical theater and some BBC dramas. Then, suddenly, I was thrown into this franchise. I had never experienced anything like it.

People assume that I'm an aristocrat, but I don't really feel part of any class.