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In a play, you only get one chance, and you have to get it perfect. In a film, you can change and fix it whatever way you want, so really, there's a pretty big difference.

That's the difference between working on film and working in a play. In a play, you work on it, and you live in it and develop it and make it happen.

Making a film or doing a play are completely different experiences and entirely fulfilling, but completely unique. I also think one complements the other. People often say that theater is about flexing your muscles, and is actually real acting, whereas I sort of disagree.

You act in a movie, and at the end of the day, the director and editor decide what your performance is.

There's nothing like a play. It's so immediate and every performance is different. As an actor, you have the most control over what the audience is seeing.

It's easier to go from theatre to film than the other way round. In film you're absolutely loved and cossetted and cared for. In film your director makes your performance. In theatre you're carrying it all.

With film, so much is in the director's hands. Once something is cut together - unless you're in the editing room - you don't really remember what the alternatives are. The exercise in theater is night after night, you are doing the same play, but you have another opportunity to explore.

As an actor, you're always at the service of somebody else's vision. In a play, it's more of the director's vision, and he or she's got their hands on you all the way up to opening night, and if it's a film, there are even more people.

With a stage play, they can't cut a word; you can be in rehearsals every day, you cast it, you cast the director, too; the amount of control for a playwright is almost infinite, so you have that control over the finished product.

In an action film you act in the action. If it's a dramatic film you act in the drama.