in Kazakhstan
and is the son of pianists Povilas Stravinsky
and Eleonora Nakipbekova.
He started to play the violin at the age of four at The Moscow Central Music School. After emigrating to London, he continued his studies at the Yehudi Menuhin School
and Eton College
, before graduating at the Royal Academy of Music
in London. It is there that he founded his own chamber orchestra from fellow students and began his conducting studies.
I go through life thinking it's all going to end tomorrow.
I don't believe in self-promotion, really I can't be arsed.
I always wanted to be an actor. I had the arrogance to believe I couldn't be anything else.
As far as I'm concerned, I want to be nowhere else. It's difficult in film because everybody wants to make a safe bet with roles. But if you are going to do stuff then you should be getting strong reactions. I don't want audiences to be going, "Yeah, that's all right."
It's something else. I'm speechless. I've just got to step up to the plate and deal with it. I had a confidence about it but then that's because of the people around me who made me feel good about it. I knew positively on Monday. I was in Baltimore when I took the call. My first reaction was I needed a drink.
I hate handguns. Handguns are used to shoot people and as long as they are around, people will shoot each other. That's a simple fact. I've seen a bullet wound and it was a mess. It was on a shoot and it scared me. Bullets have a nasty habit of finding their target and that's what's scary about them.
If I went onto the Internet and started looking at what some people were saying about me - which, sadly, I have done - it would drive me insane.