Samuel Barnett
I feel like I've gotten more than a lot of people will ever get. I feel very fortunate.
Acting is a sport - especially working with Mark Rylance. There is competition involved. I have to be muscular, challenging, get audiences on side. It's extraordinary how Globe audiences join in - it's like competing at an event - I love it.
I never wanted to do Shakespeare; I never liked watching it, it's always frightened me, and I've never been any good at it. But I really wanted to work with the director Tim Carroll and Mark Rylance.
I've definitely learned that if you want to have power as a woman in Shakespeare's time, and it's still relevant today, that you have to play a different game than men play, and you have to be a lot cleverer.
Like the Elizabeth I play, Queen Elizabeth is a monarch who actually moves with the times. She gets new information, assimilates it, and changes in order the fit in with the way the world is moving. I admire that.
I have been out of drama school for 13 years, so there are 13 years' worth of graduates behind me.
This industry isn't fair. It doesn't owe anybody a career. It's just about luck, determination, and showing up and being professional. The rest is out of your hands.
It's like saying French shouldn't be taught because you don't understand it because it's new. Shakespeare is just like learning a new, exciting language.
I have my own faith which I've developed. It's non-denominational. I don't even know if it's about God.
Are men and women different creatures? Do we feel things differently? Being a man, I can't know what a woman feels.
Obviously we had to study Shakespeare at school, but to be honest, I was not a fan. I found the language very difficult, and I didn't enjoy watching it or studying it. I auditioned five times for the Royal Shakespeare Company early on in my career, and I didn't even get past the first rounds.
I love just walking around New York. It's like a whole world in one place.
Journalists have sometimes looked to my Twitter account and quoted me from there, and that's fine because that's public domain. I know exactly what I'm doing when I post something on Twitter; in a way, it's saying, 'This is who I am, and I don't have anything to hide.'
My life, my family and my friends are back in the U.K., so ideally I would love the kind of career that is split between London and New York.
The Pre-Raphaelites, while very bothered by what the establishment thought of them, also utterly rebelled against it. In everything - social, sexual, emotional - they were out on a limb, pushing the boundaries.
I hope it's always going to be a mix between theatre, film and radio. I've been very lucky living in London that you can do all that - in New York and L.A., there's more of a structure for film in L.A. and theatre in New York. In London, our industry is smaller, but it produces brilliant work all in one place.
I like all sorts of art, that's why I love wandering around The National Gallery.
I really admire paintings that look like an actual snapshot - I think that's just extraordinary.
With Millais's paintings, it's microscopic; when he does hair, it's extraordinary: you can see every strand.
In New York, I get people coming up to me because 'The History Boys' was such a hit on Broadway, and they show the film all the time on cable over there, so people recognise you.
I guess I've grown to admire Queen Elizabeth II more. I've always struggled with my feelings about the Royal Family. I am a supporter. I'm not someone who thinks we should get rid of them. But what I've struggled with is the lack of emotionality that the Queen seems to share.
I want to be engaged and moved by theatre, there's nothing more disappointing than being left cold. After 'The Author,' I felt wrung out emotionally, like a used tissue.
I'd seen Elijah [Wood], when I was a little boy, in The Good Son. And then, I was a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings. It took awhile to get over that whole, "That's Elijah Wood - Frodo, from The Lord of the Rings." I was a mega fan of that. I went to the all-day screenings of the director's cut, where you could see the really long versions of all three movies, in one day.Collection: Son
[Dirk Gently] just doesn't understand social cues.Collection: Social
You had to make everything much more truthful for the camera. With the stage it's a given that it's going to be theatrical.Collection: Truthful
The great thing about the show [ Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency] is that there is so much more to be revealed. There are questions about what each of these characters actually know, and nothing is what it seems.Collection: Character
I couldn't have asked for a better acting partner and a better human being to work with. We have to work very closely together, and I felt, in our screen test, that we had really good chemistry, but I wasn't sure if I was just making that up. Max has written a really finely wrought bromance. I have complete trust in Elijah [Wood].Collection: Acting
To me, Elijah Wood is one of the best actors of my generation. He's so incredibly present and in the moment, when you're working with him, and then we just chat away about anything off camera because he's a lovely guy.Collection: Guy
[Elijah Wood] has got such a broad outlook. It's so much bigger than just the acting industry.Collection: Acting
[Elijah Wood] is a really fully-rounded, amazing human being, and I feel incredibly lucky, especially given how closely we have to work together.Collection: Together
We did every scene together, every day for four months, and it could have been a disaster, if we didn't get on, but we clicked straight away. Elijah Wood is just the nicest guy.Collection: Guy
The great irony to Dirk [Gently] is that he sees connections in everything, but the one thing he fails and struggles with most is connecting with other people.Collection: Struggle
I read the script [of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency] and went, "I haven't read anything this good, in a long time." I thought it was absolutely brilliant. The dialogue is so sparkling, smart and witty. You also have these insane, crazy characters, like energy sucking vampires and holistic assassins. It's all completely weird.Collection: Witty
I'm a Brit and I just put myself on tape, back in London, for a very distant American project that I thought I didn't stand a chance of getting. And then, I got a call about a week after I had submitted my tape, just saying, "They really like you and want to screen test you." So, I flew to L.A. and did the screen test. And then, I met Elijah [Wood] and did a screen test with him. And then, I had a very nerve-wracking few days back home, waiting and waiting and thinking, "This cannot possibly go my way because that would just be too good to be true." And then, it did.Collection: Home
Max [Landis] writes in quite a heightened way, specifically for Dirk. There's a rhythm and a specific speed to it, and it was very easy to learn because it was so well-written. It just rolled off the tongue. There aren't many auditions that I go for, where I feel like I could actually do the part. But with this one, even though I was not quite sure how to pin Dirk down, I thought I could do it.Collection: Writing
I have been out of drama school for 13 years, so there are 13 years worth of graduates behind me.Collection: Drama
The whole nature of the show [ Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency] is that everything is connected, and everything is interconnected. You have all of these strands with all of these characters, and you watch the characters interact and you wonder, "What do they have to do with each other? How does any of this link?"Collection: Character
One of the joys of this show [Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency] is that each of those characters could be starring in their own show. It's only as the show goes on that you realize how they interconnect. They're all moving towards one another inexorably, to meet at a certain point.Collection: Moving
Because I'm playing Dirk Gently [ in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency], I'm so fond of Dirk. I really see Dirk's vulnerability, and you get that, more and more. You'll start to see a little bit more of Dirk's backstory, why he behaves the way he does, and why he's doing what he's doing. I see a lot of his vulnerability, his sensitivity and his insecurity.Collection: Agency
Dirk Gently [from Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency], needs a sidekick, as all good detectives do, and he gets this message from the universe that this guy, Todd Brotzman, played by Elijah Wood, is the guy to help him through this mystery. But of course, that doesn't really explain the breadth of it.Collection: Agency
I think Dirk [Gently] thinks that he's a brilliant detective, but he's the worst detective, ever. He does have this particular skill, which I suppose you might call a really bad superpower because it's just not very helpful. He is able to sense the connections between things and he's nearly always right, but the problem is that he never knows what to do with any of those messages that he receives from the universe, so he just acts on things and gets himself into terrible trouble, all the time.Collection: Thinking
The thing about Dirk [Gently] is that he's very lonely.Collection: Lonely
Elijah Wood is interested in people, in life and in music.Collection: People
I'm a huge fan of [Elijah Wood] work and a huge fan of him, as a person. What's great about getting to know him is that he's just a really lovely, regular guy.Collection: Guy