Jim Sturgess

I was quite naughty at school. I was always in the back of the class messing about with the Bunsen burner rather than paying attention.

After 'The Way Back,' which was so epic and so rich, it was like, 'What will I do now?'

I'm drawn to cinema, especially when you're on a project that feels like it's going to be a challenge.

I moved to Manchester to join a band and ended up getting into acting, and I moved back to London to become an actor and ended up joining a band.

It's always interesting to me to tell stories that come from difficult political climates.

You finish a project and start looking for something that might interest you. A lot of the films I've made are a reaction to something I've done right before.

Definitely River Phoenix is somebody that I thought, 'This guy is very cool.' I wanted to be like him when I was a kid.

British actors come at acting from a slightly different angle. Because a lot of the films are cast out there, they are so used to the angle from which the Americans, and certainly the young guys from L.A., are coming at it, that I think it's interesting for them to find these English actors who maybe approach acting from a different place.

Certainly after '21' I was getting the opportunity to make a lot of money.

I really don't like the idea of people knowing what I am doing. I find telling everybody what you had for breakfast is really uninspiring.

When I was younger, I looked to actors like they were from another planet. You couldn't believe you could be anywhere near that world. It was exciting. I kind of like that.

I could see when I was filming '21' that it was going to go a direction I wasn't comfortable with it going.