- I was only on set for a week, but I learnt so much. What I noticed about The Dark Knight Rises was how high the stakes are - how important it is that you get it right. There's not a lot of mucking around or laughing and joking as there are on some other types of job, it's a very high stakes set and that's exactly how it should be, because there's a lot riding on it.
- If I had to pick one single thing, it would be acting for camera. That's what I've always absolutely loved. When I did my first telly role in 1995, I kind of realised that was where my heart lay. But as an actor, unless you're very lucky or you evolve in a certain way, you have to move around to keep working. I've had a lovely and varied stage career, but perhaps now at 40 it doesn't fill me with as much excitement as my other ventures.
- I've got nine tattoos, I'm 5'6", I'm Glaswegian and I'm stocky. In film you tend to work in the area you look like, and since I left Mountview (Theatre School) at 24, every so often I've played these darker roles. Thugs, drug dealers, wife beaters, junkies, whatever, so it's not an area I'm unfamiliar with!
- Even though I was doing all the singing and dancing, at the back of my mind I wanted to do straight acting.
- "I got on like a house fire with Noomi Rapace, which is funny when you consider most of my scenes involved rolling around the floor or throwing her over a table or her battering me with an iron.
- Things started to change a couple of years ago when I did Silent Witness playing head of security for Russian gangsters in London. It was the first time I'd been on screen in a suit and clean shaven. Then last year I got the call to play the headteacher in iBoy.
- On his appearance in 2017 Sci Fi thriller 'What Happened To Monday'. "I got on like a house on fire with Noomi (Rapace) despite the fact most of my scenes with her involved rolling around the floor with her, throwing her through a table or her battering me in the face with an iron.''
- On his musical theatre training and appearances in West End musicals. "Even though I was doing all this singing and dancing at the back of my mind I was bored and really wanted to be a TV and film actor.''
- On his appearance with Gerard Butler in the stage version of 'Trainspotting' (1996). "Basically I thought I was too small to play Begbie because I'm only 5'7'' (just!) and Gerry was playing Renton and the big man is 6'2 at least! I was told in no uncertain terms that my height gave me all the menace I needed and I got the part.
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