The irony is that, coming from a white-collar British background, I tend to play blue-collar Americans!

I love going for a swim. Growing up in England, anywhere with a pool seems like the height of glamour to me.

If you pick up an eighteenth-century play, at the top it says 'The Argument,' and then you have a list of characters, and then you have the play. I was just always struck by that - that, of course, good drama is about conflict.

People need revelation, and then they need resolution.

It's a beautiful thing when democracy prevails.

You know, rock stardom... I have a hard time discussing that because I don't really accept it. It's not really that tangible. What's really bizarre is how it's used as a thing - you know, 'He's the rock star of politics,' 'He's the rock star of quarterbacks' - like it's the greatest thing in the world.

In politics, you win and you lose. You come up in power, you go down; it's part of life.

The Russian yearning for the meaning of life is the major theme of our literature, and this is the real point of our intelligentsia's existence.