Samuel Barnett

“Like the Elizabeth I play, Queen Elizabeth is a monarch who actually moves with the times. She gets new information, assimilates it, and changes in order the fit in with the way the world is moving. I admire that.”

“Acting is a sport - especially working with Mark Rylance. There is competition involved. I have to be muscular, challenging, get audiences on side. It's extraordinary how Globe audiences join in - it's like competing at an event - I love it.”

“I have been out of drama school for 13 years, so there are 13 years' worth of graduates behind me.”

“I feel like I've gotten more than a lot of people will ever get. I feel very fortunate.”

“With Millais's paintings, it's microscopic; when he does hair, it's extraordinary: you can see every strand.”

“I hope it's always going to be a mix between theatre, film and radio. I've been very lucky living in London that you can do all that - in New York and L.A., there's more of a structure for film in L.A. and theatre in New York. In London, our industry is smaller, but it produces brilliant work all in one place.”

“I love just walking around New York. It's like a whole world in one place.”

“My life, my family and my friends are back in the U.K., so ideally I would love the kind of career that is split between London and New York.”

“Obviously we had to study Shakespeare at school, but to be honest, I was not a fan. I found the language very difficult, and I didn't enjoy watching it or studying it. I auditioned five times for the Royal Shakespeare Company early on in my career, and I didn't even get past the first rounds.”

“I guess I've grown to admire Queen Elizabeth II more. I've always struggled with my feelings about the Royal Family. I am a supporter. I'm not someone who thinks we should get rid of them. But what I've struggled with is the lack of emotionality that the Queen seems to share.”

“I like all sorts of art, that's why I love wandering around The National Gallery.”

“Journalists have sometimes looked to my Twitter account and quoted me from there, and that's fine because that's public domain. I know exactly what I'm doing when I post something on Twitter; in a way, it's saying, 'This is who I am, and I don't have anything to hide.'”

“Are men and women different creatures? Do we feel things differently? Being a man, I can't know what a woman feels.”

“I never wanted to do Shakespeare; I never liked watching it, it's always frightened me, and I've never been any good at it. But I really wanted to work with the director Tim Carroll and Mark Rylance.”

“I want to be engaged and moved by theatre, there's nothing more disappointing than being left cold. After 'The Author,' I felt wrung out emotionally, like a used tissue.”

“It's like saying French shouldn't be taught because you don't understand it because it's new. Shakespeare is just like learning a new, exciting language.”

“I've definitely learned that if you want to have power as a woman in Shakespeare's time, and it's still relevant today, that you have to play a different game than men play, and you have to be a lot cleverer.”

“I have my own faith which I've developed. It's non-denominational. I don't even know if it's about God.”

“The Pre-Raphaelites, while very bothered by what the establishment thought of them, also utterly rebelled against it. In everything - social, sexual, emotional - they were out on a limb, pushing the boundaries.”

“I really admire paintings that look like an actual snapshot - I think that's just extraordinary.”