TOM RILEY

Even though Da Vinci was a genius, it's important to remember he was just a man.

I worked in restaurants, bars, record stores; I did anything and everything to pay my way through university and LAMDA.

I love to run. When the weather's bad, I should get on the treadmill in the basement gym of my apartment building, but I lack the motivation.

I went to university in the north of England at University of Birmingham to do an English literature degree, and I knew I could do extracurricular stuff with theater and drama. I started a theater company, called Article 19, and I did it with a bunch of friends. I wrote and directed plays. I had a radio show.

I'm just terrible at auditions. I don't know how anyone does it.

In America, celebrities who go to see your show will come backstage and introduce themselves. Meeting Annette Bening and Ethan Hawke that way was amazing, but when Tom Hanks came, it was really special - I've loved him since I first saw him in 'Big!'

New York is fantastic, and I've done several films in Los Angeles which I really enjoyed, but I don't think that America is the be-all and end-all. I'll follow the good work wherever it may be.

Performing on stage is my first love - it's why I wanted to be an actor in the first place - and 'Arcadia' is the highlight of my career so far. I love the intimacy of a live theatre audience - you can really squeeze every last drop out of each scene.

I can jump on to a kitchen worktop from standing, like Tigger. It was something my dad could do, and I copied it from him.

I'm quite lucky in that at certain angles I look all right, and at others I don't look so good, which enables me to play some leading roles and some stranger, more 'character'-type parts. I wouldn't say I'm the conventional handsome Hollywood leading man.

What you don't get necessarily at drama school is a gigantic mix of people. At university, there's people from every social background, and you get to go through that period of being naive and not quite sure who you're going to be.

The thing about 'Doctor Who' is it's chased around the world, so there's 50 fans hanging out at every location.

I loved Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton's 'Inside No 9.' The way that they constrained each episode to a single location, then tasked themselves with including completely new characters every week, within a single half-hour.

There's a certain aura when a superstar like Brad Pitt walks into a room - I've seen it myself - but it comes from everyone else going, 'Aaaahhh!!' That's what you have to deal with, people looking at you and whispering. That would be the strangest thing, feeling the change as you walk in a room and trying to ignore it. But I think I could cope!

University was a chance to people-watch and to mix with people from all various walks of life, which as an actor is a great experience because you get to observe people.

I remember clearly watching a 'Sooty Show' at a theatre and telling my mum I wanted to be up with the puppets, not in the audience.

I feel like the experience I gained at university has really helped to inform me as far as who I wanted to become as an actor and what I wanted to do.

The minute you're offered another option, you're like, "You mean, I can watch this every week, if I want to, or twice this week, if I need to, and not next week, if I don't have time?" I didn't even realize it was something we wanted or needed, which is where all great innovations come from.

It's an art installation to put out a collection, with the people behind the scenes who are inventing and creating these designs and making sure they're realized on the catwalk, and just how much hangs on it for the designers. Their livelihoods hang in the balance, as far as whether this year's collection works for them or not, and there are so many people's jobs on the line, as a result of that. I just had no idea.

Prior to [streaming], the idea of sitting down and watching a show every week seemed like a great idea.

When you change a lead actor, everything's going to change - but you can rest assured he's going to absolutely smash it.

The other great thing about it, that seems to be the case in streaming, is that a lot more scripts are written before you start. Because they are planning on allowing it all up at one time, you have four or five scripts to read and an outline of where it's going to go. The writers aren't chasing their tails as much. You're able to see the beginning, middle and end of a storyline, and that is rare. Streaming allows that, in a way that network TV doesn't.

Like for Einstein, and for people who create nuclear weapons, the problem with the pursuit of knowledge and the pursuit of the greater good is that it invariably leads to things you weren't expecting.

I just think streaming feels like it's the future. It allows people to watch things in a way that fits into their lives.

Oliver [Goldstick] is a very dynamic and imaginative writer, so the stage directions were visceral and very clearly written.