Tom Bateman

All of my friends at drama school were still sat on the floor doing voice exercises and I was doing scenes with David Tennant and Catherine Tate.

I don't think people care what I had for breakfast.

I don't like to feel like I'm being looked at all the time.

I'm not a sit-on-the-beach kind of guy.

I got in so much trouble when I was doing 'Snatched' in Hawaii.

My mum asked me what I prefer, and I said, 'I never miss film, but I miss theater.'

Maybe it's a bit snobby, but it's as if you're a proper actor if you do stage.

It always comes down to script and characters.

For someone to stand up against the norm makes them very intriguing to me.

I have friends who say, 'I don't want to do period now because I have done a period piece and I need to wait for two years' - I don't have that.

It's awful because if you have a blessed life like me, where I've been so lucky, you end up saying things like, 'Oh, my God. I was just playing hide-and-seek with Penelope Cruz.'

I'm one of those old-fashioned people who keeps their private life private.

I sweat on stage a lot.

I don't have social media.

Jekyll is quite close to me, a little bit more shy. Whereas Hyde is a mish-mash of lots of things. I didn't realise I was borrowing it throughout the auditions - but Heath Ledger's Joker was an influence.

The book says, 'Vanity Fair - a story without a hero.' Becky is effectively the protagonist, the hero we follow. But she is flawed. Becky is a subject of her own time.

I think you could very much make a 'Vanity Fair' in 2018, and I think it would probably look like a documentary.

I remember when I was younger, we used to read the Goosebumps books that were absolutely terrifying.

Jekyll is quite me: young man; polite. But being able to play Hyde was quite fun, to create a character that's nothing like me. I quite enjoyed creating a new character like that: he had a different voice; physicality; mannerisms. Everything had to be thought about. It was a real challenge.

I don't miss working on camera as much as theatre. But I do love film and television because it's so immediate; you walk on to a set and the tables are dusty, and everything's as it should be.

Nothing really teaches you for the film world.

If you're playing someone who's not like you at all, it's good to find music that is their rhythm and their energy.

There's a funny line between feeling objectified and feeling supported and it's a very odd one.

I don't do the gym.

There isn't an actor alive who hasn't been turned down, and I promise you I have taken a hell of a lot of rejection. That said, I do count my blessings every day.