“Change is vital to any actor. If you keep playing lead after lead, you’re really gonna dry up. Because all those vehicles wean you away from the truths of human behaviour.”

How do you remember all those lines? By forgetting everything else.

Wanting to be a good actor is not good enough. You must want to be a great actor. You just have to have that.

I still don’t have a publicist. If I’m in a film, you have an obligation to promote it, I’ll do as much as I can.

The industry has changed. Two years ago I could tell a company I’ve got Russell Crowe and that would get the film made. Now they’d ask ‘And who’s the girl?’ Just one famous face isn’t enough any more.

It’s been said that alcoholics are egomaniacs with low self -esteem. It’s the prefect description. Being larger than life and yet your pride is crushed with self- loathing.

But you see, I have played more good guys than I have played villains.

My big love was the Beatles. I was more into music.

My passion and energy get mistaken for anger.

I applaud anything that can take a kid away from a PlayStation or a Gameboy. That is a miracle in itself.

I never told my father I loved him before he died, and I have a lot of issues about that. They’re all swimming around in my head, in my heart, unresolved, and in a way it felt fitting to dedicate the film to him.

Any actor who tells you that they have become the people they play, unless they’re clearly diagnosed as a schizophrenic, is bullshitting you.

People imagine that actors are being offered everything and you are not. So things come in and sometimes there are things that I want and can’t get a meeting on, or go to a different actors.

I like a cheese and pickle. Nice cheese and pickle on a real old-fashioned bread. Ploughman’s lunch.

To be honest, Im a little tired of playing bad guys. I long to do a comedy. But it was fun knocking Indiana Jones around.

Being a good director is knowing sometimes when not to say something.

I wasn’t ever a huge fan of comics. Just not one of those kids, you know?

Art is something to be proud of. Art is no compromise. As an actor, you’re giving it up, you’re at the mercy of so many other people.

The best research for playing a drunk is being a British actor for 20 years.

Wanting to be a good actor is not good enough. You must want to be a great actor. You just have to have that.

Being misunderstood is not a bad thing as an actor. I know the truth.

From a very early age, I made my decisions based on careers that I admire. The one thing that all the actresses I love have in common is that they have diversity in their careers.

Any actor who tells you that they have become the people they play, unless they’re clearly diagnosed as a schizophrenic, is bullshitting you.

God is the poet; men are but the actors. The great dramas of earth were written in heaven.

I fell in love with theater there, and after graduation I moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting.