I’ve enjoyed some of these questions, not all of them - but thank you very much. It was often challenging.

I think I've learned the most from working with Vanessa Redgrave.

I always thought Kathryn Bigelow made a great film. I was disappointed at the time that it got quite a mixed response. I worry that people didn't buy me as an ex-LAPD cop and perhaps an American actor might have been better. But I loved playing Lenny Nero and gave it my heart and soul.

I remember the excitement when we arrived in Tunisia to shoot the desert sequences. I have a vivid memory of being taken up in the one the period biplanes we were using and watching the camels moving across the sand below me. I loved shooting in the desert. I kept a lot of shirts.

Well it would be exciting to play opposite a great actor from the past of whom there is no recording - ie David Garrick, Eleonora Duse, Sarah Bernhardt. In my first job at the National Theatre I worked with three great actors who have now sadly died - Richard Pascoe, Robin Bailey and Alec McCowan. When I was at the National recently, I had the clearest memories of greeting them in the corridor or saying goodnight after a performance and I thought how wonderful it would be to meet them again on the stage.

Well you expect to be beleaguered at official/ industry occasions - it goes with the territory. I don't really feel I'm the focus of relentless attention but of course if you're promoting a film - which is what I'm doing now - you're going to get attention. I know I can be irritable and impatient caught off guard by a fan at the wrong moment. But I'm trying to keep my feet on the ground.

I've read so many reviews where I've been compared to Leonard Rossiter. He was a great comic actor. But I don't feel the resemblance - but I can see there's something in the nose-y thing and the receding hair.

The truth is I found it really hard playing the young Republican senator in Maid in Manhattan. I was flattered to be asked to play opposite J-Lo. But quickly realised that my Prince Charming role didn’t have much grit. It amused me to read that in a recent Guardian breakdown of J-Lo’s films it was considered that I’d let down the film by coming across as a serial killer.

I know I passed on roles that someone else has had a great success in but I have no regrets. I like to stand by the choices I made.

It's a good question but on reflection I think I would feel uncomfortable reliving another person's memories. It feels invasive.

My father built a house on the Sheep’s Head Peninsula in West Cork in 1973. It was a stunning location. A shingle strand creating a small bay behind which was a freshwater lake backed by mountains. In the evening swans would come in and land on the lake. My father took us out mackerel fishing in a small boat. The memories are very strong, but I've not been back. I would like to return.

Yes, absolutely I would. The story of Mary Seacole - who was a British/Jamaican businesswoman and nurse who looked after soldiers during the Crimean War - seems to me a great story.

I've just embarked on the Neapolitan trilogy by Elena Ferrante. The last thing I read that really got under my skin was Philip Roth's The Plot Against America – alarmingly resonant in today's climate.

I'd like to work with any of the above. They're great film-makers. They can easily find my agent's telephone number.

A really good anecdote. A juicy bit of gossip (I'm not sharing...).

I watched Paul Scofield on stage playing Salieri in the first production of Amadeus. It was a thrilling performance and I felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck. So you can imagine the mixture of excitement, awe and delight I felt working with him on Quiz Show.
Perhaps I was star struck then. But quickly realised I was working with a great actor and a great human being. I didn't feel nervous. I just wanted to do my best.

I completely disagree with your response to the film – we see Nureyev in bed with his male lover. How is that a portrayal of a straight man?
He looks longingly across a nightclub at two men dancing sensuously together. I believe I have told the truth about his emerging sexuality at this time in his life.

How would you motivate our facebook generation?
I wouldn't. I hate the idea of Facebook.

I had a handful of ballet classes with Bennett who is great. I was 54 years old (two years ago) and don't hold your breath.

I don't know where my feeling of connection with Russian culture comes from. All I know is that I have felt hugely rewarded in feeling Dostoevsky or Turgenev and Pushkin. Of 19th century authors I'm largely ignorant about Soviet-era literature. Particularly there's a great humanity in Chekhov.

1. I was reading the early chapters of a biography of Nureyev about 20 years ago. I was really struck by this ferocious will to realise himself as a dancer. This moved me. I didn't come to the film because of a love of ballet. I wanted to make the film because I was moved by the dynamic interior question of the young Nureyev.
I'm not comfortable with messages in films – I'm more interested that the film asks questions.