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If you're an English actor and turn up in America, they don't have an opinion about where you sit. They have no idea what auditions to send you to, so they send you to everything.

I don't like auditions. I feel like they're a very unnatural setting and it's a very unsettling experience. Because you can't help but walk in and feel like you're trying to prove yourself to people. And you should just walk in and be.

If you have a passion and love for something, it's hard to give it up. I had jobs where the people were helpful and let me go to auditions, and I'd make up the hours another day. I was lucky in that respect: I could afford to get to London.

Auditions are very strange - you're there to win, to seek approval. They never get easier, but I did realise that you're there voluntarily, after all.

In all honesty, if somebody asked me the secret of auditioning for Americans, I don't know. Often, I do what's called self-taping for America. I go over there quite a lot to sit in a room and do stuff in front of people. You feel like a performing monkey. It's bizarre.

I don't try and be competitive with auditions. When I go on one, I kind of just forget about it.

In Australia, getting an audition can be a rarity. There just aren't as many opportunities.

I've always done pretty well in auditions. I just go in and give it my best shot.

I've been auditioning since I'm nine years old. Honestly, most of my friends I've met in audition rooms because you're always auditioning.

I came to Los Angeles and did auditions for television. I made a terrible mess of most of them and I was quite intimidated. I felt very embarrassed and went back to London. I got British television jobs intermittently between the ages of 23 and 27, but it was very patchy.