I get sent a lot of scripts which feature him as a kind of all-purpose Victorian literary character and really understand little, if anything, about him, his life or his books.
“That was after Napoleon died because there is still a controversy as to whether Napoleon was poisoned with arsenic. And the French say the British did it and the British say the French did it, but he died before the test for arsenic was available.”
“Earlier on in my career I felt that I had to hide behind a lot of different masks, and showboat ways of performing. Now, that's a lie. The less I have to hide, the less I have to act.”