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I find with television, you have to play personality, whereas onstage, everyone talks about 'the character,' and what you do. It's a very different thing, because stage is much bigger, but on television, for things to come across to the public, I think you have to play a bit of your personality.

I love the stage - the fact that you only have one take to get it right, the interaction with the audience, and how every show is different even though you're doing the same thing.

The stage is that immediate rush of energy you get from the audience. Also, doing something in chronology - something that starts and finishes the same night. In television, you work toward the one scene, you shoot it, and then you have to forget about it because you have to worry about the next scene.

I really love the process, with stage, of rehearsal, you get to create a character, and you have a beginning, a middle, and an end of story. And in television, you don't.

As a writer, you're really in control of almost everything. That's not the case in TV. You have to be prepared to work with a lot of people to make something happen, and you got to be prepared, at least in the beginning, to not be too good at your specific task.

When you're making a TV drama, the showrunner is God, and so however onerous and difficult and consuming that responsibility is, you're being treated with respect, so it changes your whole outlook to the production. You're being asked about costumes, set design, music, every aspect of the show.

I have absolutely no preference on TV or stage. Every job I take or that I audition for all comes down to the quality of the script.

I like to spend as much time on the stage as possible. I don't do a regular TV series because I don't want to be overexposed.

In TV, there's so much compromise, it does start to grate a bit. But if you're a writer or an actor, it really is the place to be.