It's a complicated relationship with the place one grows up in, particularly if it's Northern Ireland.

My preference is for good writing. It doesn't matter if it's for film or TV. Whatever. It starts with the writing. Even though I've had problems with writers, it doesn't matter how great of an actor you are. If the writing is bad, you're going to struggle.

We have to get behind the scientists and push for a dementia breakthrough. It could be that we fear dementia out of a sense of hopelessness, but there is hope, and it rests in the hands of our scientists.

People love watching medical dramas - they also love watching documentaries about the workings of the brain.

Perhaps our imagination needs crime stories to fulfill some craving we have, as a way to assuage a darkness in ourselves.

If I get to the end of my life, and people say, 'He was in 'Cold Feet,' well, I was, and it was great. I thought the fourth series wasn't great. I thought there were weak episodes throughout. Overall, I thought it was a good show, it had an impact, it dealt with a lot of issues, and it was a great part.

In my life, I have made the occasional catastrophic choice, and it's just a case of moving on and learning from it.

I don't know a single person who doesn't regret the things that they did to hurt their parents, or the things they didn't say to them.

There's some irony in playing a journalist after some of the stuff that has been written about me, but it's a great profession, particularly investigative journalism.

There will only ever be 13 dwarves in 'The Hobbit' - and I was one of them. If I had my time again, would I do it? Yeah, I would.

Drama asks some uncomfortable questions at times... It goes to pretty dark places.

Ours was a very progressive Protestant family, but my parents were God-loving rather than God-fearing. We went to church, and I still go with my mum and dad when I return home - it's a family thing. I played flute in my dad's marching band, but I had an integrated upbringing. We had a lot of Catholic friends.

I have three older sisters who, when we were children, used to hold me down on a bad day and put make-up all over me, so I've had an aversion to it all my life and hate sitting down in the make-up chair.

I grew up loving women and without misogyny, rancour or prejudice, totally loved and loving. And no matter what has happened since, I don't think I have treated women in my life very badly.

I went to India with UNICEF in connection with Manchester United to raise money for children's education.

Supporting drama for young people is close to my heart.

I love nothing more than going to eat by myself with a newspaper.

As I told Piers Morgan, 'Catholics have confession, whereas Northern Irish Protestants only have interviews.'

Brain surgeons are dealing with the very last thread of life, and they have to be very confident, but I think they tend to remember their failures rather than their successes, and that must be very hard. Who do you share that failure with? That's why their personal lives are often disastrous.

Belfast is a city which, while not forgetting its past, is living comfortably with its present and looking forward to its future.

No one wanted to own Bloody Sunday.

My best friends are still the ones I first attached myself to when I went to school because, all of a sudden, I was leaving the rather pampered and occasionally very annoying world of having three older sisters to go to a male-dominated world.

Richard Armitage is very good at the old horse riding because of course he did it in 'Robin Hood,' so he's very good at that.

When you suddenly become successful, the change is enormous, both financially and in terms of recognition and the way people treat you. I found that hard to deal with. I got very guilty about it, and I think I put up obstacles to prevent myself enjoying it.