I suffer from a more complex, persistent fear. It manifests itself in nerves, and on film the camera sees even the tiniest evidence of this. So you have to learn that when the director calls 'Action,' you don't go to this place of tension, but somehow you become free.

I did an interview once where I was asked who I found attractive and I went on about cartoons and Nala from 'The Lion King' - and it's a bit weird but various of my ex-girlfriends actually did look like Nala.

I'm quite ignorant about fashion and I'm colourblind, so it's all a tad tricky. My only knowledge of that world comes through Christopher Bailey, whom I first met in 2008 when I did a campaign for Burberry that featured musicians, artists, actors and sportsmen.

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.

If I do a film and have to get naked, that tends to dictate how often I go to the gym. Acting in 'Richard II' on stage was a huge physical workout, so I ended up more toned than I normally am.

What's really interesting about actors, is that we all have opinions on how people's careers look, but I think you never have any idea of your own, or what other people think of you.

I wish I could describe anything I do as conscious or strategized. To be honest, in acting, you have so little control. The only control you have is if you're lucky enough to be in a position, which is not very often, in which you have choice. It's about what choices you make, and for me, it's entirely instinctive.

What an extraordinary thing it can be, love, how it will not defined by gender, by sexuality, by race, by religion, by anything. It's something else. It's something other.

I hope, then, that every one who sees 'The Danish Girl' might be galvanized themselves to lead more authentic lives. How much lovelier would the world be then?

I always try to describe making movies like summer camp, or some holiday where you spend all day, every day with a new group of people whom you kind of love and then never see again.

My first film, 'Like Minds,' was with Toni Colette, who was extraordinary. I mean it was basically a mini-masterclass for acting on film at a time when all you could probably see were my eyebrows bouncing up and down on screen.

For 'The Theory of Everything,' I was quite low down on a list of actors for the role, and I got the opportunity as a consequence of people saying no to it. So I have been very, very lucky.

A lot of people think theatre must be much harder work than film, but anything histrionic or superfluous gets seen on camera so you have to work to distil it into a complete sense of what's true.

When you start out acting, you dream of getting an agent and getting a job. For years, you audition and you get what you can. Choice isn't something that you have much of.

I do get stopped a bit now and then, but I can go to the supermarket and on the Tube without being noticed. It's usually me that gets starstruck, especially by TV stars.

Velvet is great. It's warm as well. And it's snug.

Making 'Birdsong,' on the one hand you have how prestigious it is and the reputation of the book, which is something that's an extraordinary piece of work. Sebastian Faulkes is a genius. So you feel that responsibility when you're portraying that character that he's imagined and millions of readers have pictured.

I've played women since I was a kid and I've always enjoyed it.

As someone who gets nervous in silences, I spill words rather than really think.

I have this horrific thing where I'm really bad with names and faces. I have an appalling memory. Someone will come up to me in the street and go, 'Eddie!', and I'll try and give myself time by going into overdrive, 'Hey, hi! Nice to see you!' and start a whole conversation because I can't distinguish between who I know and who I don't.

I had never been to a fashion show before going to the Burberry show last month. It was an extraordinary spectacle. I was incredibly green and had no idea what an undertaking it is. I also have a new respect for models because they are so close to the front row and must be so self-conscious.

I think all actors have a similar deal. You want some people who understand. Although it looks great - and is great - there are also shoddy moments when you feel really rotten, and when it's going well, you're not allowed to complain.

I'm trying to buy a house and set some sense of roots because otherwise you're constantly chasing one job after another, and you look back and you've had all these very extraordinary experiences with extraordinary people, but there's not a line of continuity to it.

When I was living in New York, I had this slightly wannabe bohemian existence and took up painting, at which I'm appalling. I also bought several guitars.

As an actor there's a lot of scrutiny and, even when you've had success, it becomes about sustaining that success. A friend of mine described it as a peakless mountain. Even for De Niro there's Pacino and for Pacino there's De Niro.

Most actors hate watching their own films because all you can see is the glaring mistakes, your own tricks and ticks.

Listen, acting is not surgery, it's entertainment. You're doing something to hopefully move people, to make them laugh, to transport them. But actors are vulnerable, and the reason we're vulnerable is that we're always trying to recreate human behaviour.

Ladies and babies, and mortgages, for that matter, can all wait. Acting has done a strange thing to me, though. I often sit there, thinking, 'I love this, but I wouldn't put my daughter on the stage.'

They're such hierarchical things, film sets, they're sort of mini societies. Often they're incredibly political places.

Everything about filmmaking is incredibly weird, and there's nothing natural about watching yourself on the big screen or hearing your voice. It's that same thing that you feel when you watch yourself on a video camera and you hate the sound of your voice - it's that times 800.

I walk around talking to myself in accents. Usually people look at me like I'm a complete fruit loop.

And you can't complain about kissing Emma Watson. Isn't that what everyone in the world wants to do? I've known Emma for a few years. She's this amazing capacity of young and vibrant and brilliant, but also a bright, intelligent old soul.

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.

It's the weird thing Eton does - you're at school next to lords and earls and, in my case, Prince William, so you end up being used to dealing with those sorts of people.

Two years ago, I shot 'Pillars of the Earth' in Budapest - it was a big part, but I had a lot of time to sit around and visit cafes.

As a runner on a film, you are the lowest of the low, and yet you have incredible access to everyone. I can totally imagine that for actors in the middle of a Hollywood bubble, all they really want is a sense of normality, and that gopher can be a tap for that.

On so many levels, acting in film and TV is so much the sum of its parts, and somewhere in there, there's an alchemical thing that makes something happen or not - that makes something connect or not. Now, of course you want to make work that people see, but the enjoyment I get out of acting is playing characters.

When you're doing a film that has so many effects, you do a lot of it on green screen, and you can't see what that world is.

If your dream is to tell stories, interesting stories, play interesting people, that's the bottom line. The people that I play have to be extraordinary.

I come home from trying to pretend to know about astronomy and physics all day and turn on 'The Real Housewives'.

I've been a closet lover of faux-reality TV since 'The Hills'. It's bad.

I never really committed to being an actor. It never felt like it would be possible, I guess.

Filming is about continuing to be alert and to think, and I find it quite exhausting.

If gender is on a spectrum, where one finds oneself is completely unique.

There's something scary about acting always, because basically you do all this work in a vacuum, and then suddenly there's a lot of money spent making a film, and there's suddenly a camera here, going, 'Right? What are you gonna do?'

There's been a huge history of cisgender success on the back of trans stories, which is something I'm deeply aware of. My take on it, I suppose, was that I do think actors should be able to play anything.

Going to the Oscars is always the most sensory overload and a huge amount of fun.

I am fascinated by Omega's history. Particularly the First World War stuff, when they made watches for the flying corps, and the NASA side of it.

I find in film acting that however many years you have done it for, you can feel totally relaxed and at ease with the people around you, absolutely wonderful, then roll camera and a little part of you goes, 'Ugh'. It is learning how to manage that.

The percentage of actors employed is pretty small, and if you're lucky enough to have a good run at it, you do have a sense of responsibility.