Jack O'Connell

“I want to create a body of work that is entertaining and speaks to people for a long time. Longer than my life span.”

“I'd be lying if I said I never think about my female fans in certain shots and certain scenes. Like, when I'm topless, I might think: 'This one is for the ladies.'”

“I feel like I've grown up on screen quite a lot.”

“If I'm among my boys or people I've grown up with, I can be immature.”

“My first experience on a feature film was with Shane Meadows on 'This Is England.'”

“I wanted to join the Army when football failed. That was my only realistic form of making an honest living.”

“I quite like to sing, actually - just belting out numbers with my guitar. I find that it's a form of tranquility.”

“I find the education I got from living in Derby and being streetwise and knowing the people that I know, the lessons that I had to learn growing up, have set me in good stead for this kind of working life.”

“I was a youngster looking up to dudes like Vicky McClure, Joe Dempsie and Michael Socha - in fact, he was a big influence on how I was able to detach drama from the all-singing, all-dancing stigma.”

“I need to mature a bit - then I might have something to show for it.”

“I'm actually a hippy in real life. I had three dreadlocks on the back of my head once. They were spawning.”

“I like the ideology of there being no such thing as perfection. But I'm of the opinion that I have witnessed perfection at various times, especially in art.”

“Since I started acting, I've always been aware of the sort of 'beastly entity' that is America and Hollywood, and semi-consciously, I devised a kind of route in - I'd seen a lot of people try and fail.”

“I worked on a farm for a little bit.”

“I've had the good fortune of studying the 17th-century art of Amsterdam in preparation for a film.”