Actors, who have no real sense of who they are or what they want, have long known that not just their gender but every aspect of their identity is on a spectrum. They can be anything they are asked to be. They aspire to a protean state, shape-shifting like high summer clouds.

The truth is I have always found it hard to get up. One of the reasons I became an actor was specifically because you get to lie in more than people with proper jobs.

People who go to Oxford and Cambridge are often unproductive. What am I saying? This is nonsense. No, sometimes they get so competitive that, unless they're going to be Pulitzer prize-winning, they can't get off their backside.

They haven't said it, but let's be clear: I would never have been on the list for James Bond, so I'm not labouring under that misapprehension.