Quotes from Mark Bonnar

I don't usually turn down work, it usually involves a very big debate with agents and family and your conscience and your sense of panic. But it is the only power we have, as actors - to say no.

Work breeds a bit of work sometimes. If you're in the right place at the right time, that can lead to other things.

Success is something that other people always point out. I don't think one ever thinks of oneself as successful, because if you do, you're going to immediately lose whatever it is that's driving you, aren't you?

Actors are used to staring at the walls waiting for the phone to ring. It's not unchartered territory for us.

I had a cat called Pushkin when I was growing up.

I made a conscious decision after I did 'The Duchess of Malfi' at the Old Vic in 2012, when my daughter was six months old, to try doing more screen work.

London and the surrounds are a great place to be. It is a great part of the world.

I started writing my own symphony. I wrote about a page and a half. My mum and dad took it into music class and gave it, pleased as punch, to the teacher, Miss Montgomery. She played it on the piano for them. So I think they're the only ones that ever heard it.

I always considered myself working class, because I was brought up on a council estate. I still do, really. I mean, I might have a bit more money now than I did then, but it's in your head, class, I think. It's how you feel in there.

Crime makes for great drama and it's interesting because it delves into the darker side of us. Those kind of stories go way back, the detective and the criminal.

Some of the best jokes are about funerals or people dying or whatever. Laughter and tears are two sides of the same coin.

I grew up watching 'Porridge' and it's so loved, it was a daunting prospect to take on. Fortunately, it was written by the original writers, Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, who are comedy gods.

I tend to keep my love of heavy metal under the radar.

I spent the first 10 years of my career playing psychotic Scotsman. I'm still playing psychotic Scotsmen really, they've just become a bit funnier.

Driving to set for 'The Rig', the route went right past my old secondary school. Every morning when I was going to work, I was passing Leithy and thinking: 'Oh my God, there's where Billy Gilfillan punched me in the mouth' or whatever.

There's nothing quite like being able to get into the minds of other people, and figure out how they work, and what makes other people tick. And going against your own grain sometimes, to push yourself into places you wouldn't go emotionally.

I mean sex can be funny for heaven's sake.

Certainly with stage, as I'm remembering, you don't get to spend any time at home. With film, you might do three, four days a week, and they might not be full days. So that aspect of it was a consideration. But I also just wanted to try different kinds of working.

In history we studied the bog man. Do you remember the bog man? I was absolutely fascinated by this. When something brings the past into sharp focus as a child it creates an indelible impression.

And something like 'Unforgotten' is impressive with the myriad threads of people's lives so brilliantly woven together.

According to a lot of people I am in everything and they're sick of the sight of me.

My dad went to art school when I was one. They scraped and continued scraping, because artists, as we all know, don't earn a lot of money. It's a precarious existence and my mum didn't work, so dad sold paintings.

I sold burglar alarms for four weeks, which wasn't very long, but it was long enough.

I take each job on its merits. If a job's good, and it's worth doing for the reasons you want to do it, then I make that decision at the time.