Aaron Taylor-Johnson is staying mum on the James Bond casting rumors that have followed the actor for years since Daniel Craig’s last bow with the franchise. But he’s getting more candid about the discourse surrounding his nearly 12-year marriage to filmmaker Sam Taylor-Johnson, who is 24 years his senior. The pair, now 33 and 57, respectively, met when she directed him in the 2009 John Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy and wed in 2012 when he was 22.

“What you gotta realize is that what most people were doing in their 20s, I was doing when I was 13,” Taylor-Johnson told Rolling Stone UK in a recent interview. “You’re doing something too quickly for someone else? I don’t understand that. What speed are you supposed to enjoy life at? It’s bizarre to me.”

The actor also praised his wife’s filmmaking career, which includes the first installment of Fifty Shades of Grey and Back to Black, the upcoming Amy Winehouse biopic. “Sam is actually a great filmmaker and a wonderful storyteller,” Taylor-Johnson said. “People will think there’s sort of a bias to me saying it, but I think when they see Back to Black, everyone’s going to realize how fantastic a filmmaker she is.” He also noted the challenges of working with his spouse on projects like the 2019 film A Million Little Pieces, given that criticism of a project can feel like judgment of them as a couple. “There’s a protectiveness that I feel; I think it’s really difficult,” Taylor-Johnson said. “There’s also part of me that feels like if something didn’t work, I’m the one that’s responsible.”

The Taylor-Johnsons share four daughters, two of whom are from Sam’s previous marriage. Being a parent has changed Aaron’s outlook on selecting roles. “I tend to soak up and absorb the atmosphere. And it’s important for me to get rid of that and shed that skin when I come home to cuddle my kids at night,” Taylor-Johnson explained. “When I did Nocturnal Animals, I lived out in fucking Mojave Desert and was in a motel for the entire time to do that job. There was no way on earth I was bringing that back into my house.”

He continued of his kids, “You realize it’s your job to protect the purest, most innocent thing that’s come into the world. And it’s your duty to be their role model. You are going to be reflected in their choices later on in life, from who their partners are to how they carry themselves in the world.”

Sam Taylor-Johnson addressed interest in the couple’s age gap during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter back in 2017: “If I gave a second thought to other people, I would be the unhappiest person, probably still in a miserable marriage,” she said. “People like to talk about it. I’m like, ‘Yeah, but it works better than my last marriage. It’s lasted longer than a lot of my friends’ marriages.’”