Eddie Marsan

What I love about the East End is that there's a great perseverance, determination and courage. What I dislike about it is that there is sometimes a celebration of ignorance.

My business is not to show anybody anything; my job is just to do it.

When I was a struggling actor, I worked for a party company. One of my friends from school was working for an advertising agency, and I turned up to one of his company's parties dressed as an alien to collect tickets on the door.

I wasn't that hard. I wasn't that tough. I wasn't that funny - I looked like me.

The hardest thing to do and most miserable films are comedies.

I used to do a lot of comedy. I don't know what happened. I think it's my face.

My friends I grew up with were so supportive to me. And I'm not the only one who's done well.

I didn't do well at school, and I don't have lots of academic reference points.

I come from a council estate in Tower Hamlets, and by no means am I the only person who has done well - one of my friends is head of year in a great school in Twickenham. Another is a writer; another is an artist, a musician.

Acting was a way of me finding myself, which I think is the case of a lot of actors, regardless of where they come from.

When you watch 'Ray Donovan,' you think that it's about Hollywood, about scandal, about stars, and about trying to keep secrets. That's true, but that's also just the means by which you reveal secrets of the people suffering every day life.

As children, we all hold on to the myth of omnipotence. Comics are successful because kids identify with superheroes. They'll read a book or watch a TV programme and say, 'I'm that guy.' And that guy is always the one in control.