Aneurin Barnard

A friend of mine once, when I was 11 years old, mentioned that there was a youth theater, a local amateur youth theater nearby where young people could go every Sunday. And that's where it began, really.

I try to be respectful and talk to any fan and sign anything that anyone wants. Without the fans, you're not much. You need fans to do this job. I've got a nice little following, and it seems to be growing as each thing comes out.

I want to do something original rather than interpret someone else's performance, which is always the risk - even if it's only in a subconscious way. I want to concentrate on giving my own fresh interpretation.

It's so much nicer to be able to do your job with someone who's helping you, and you're helping them. Then, it becomes a tennis match where you're hitting the ball back and forth, and you're a team.

For me as a Welsh actor, Richard Burton is one of my biggest idols. And I've got so many: Peter O'Toole, Laurence Olivier and Oliver Reed. If they got 'Hunky Dory' and 'Citadel' offered to them, they would do completely different jobs on both of them.

Different films, different genres show the different things I do. It's nice because it brings different groups of people to following what I'm doing. So hopefully, it kind of reiterates that I'm not just a one-trick pony as well.

I always used to pretend to be different characters - cowboys, that sort of thing. I used to think that the Indians lived over the mountains that I could see out of my bedroom. As I grew up, I started to understand that acting was actually a craft, and there was no question about it, that was exactly what I was going to do.

When I was a kid, I used to pretend to be Bond; I used to make up scenarios and irritate my sister and annoy my mother and father pretending to be someone else, so I kind of was already acting when I was a child. I just didn't really know it.

Personally speaking, tights aren't too comfortable for a man to wear.

I like to portray things as close to the bone as possible.

The biggest thing about me, as an actor, is I'm never a finished product, you know? I always want to try something or be in a new genre because, one, it's much more fun to do that because you're not doing the same thing over and over.

Every job I've done so far, every character has been completely different, and that's really important to me because I don't want to fall into a stereotypical box. Of course, every actor has their box, and you have to respect and play for it, but I do love challenging myself.