“On set I keep myself to myself; I’d rather the director speak up. I’m not gonna direct a younger actor. I think the power of example works best, actually.”

The script is your map of the world, isn’t it? And if someone knows that if it’s well-written, you get all of the beats, it will tell you everything you need to know.

I’m rarely asked to play the smartest man in the room.

You always hope that the cloak of inspiration will fall, and you’ll be O.K.

I went and lived in Chicago for a year , and I studied at the police academy.

As an actor, you people-watch, you observe. And the more famous you become, the sad thing is you lose the ability to do that. Instead of people-watching, you become the focus of attention.

Reality TV to me is the museum of social decay.

I drank for about 25 years getting over the loss of my father, and I took the anger out on myself. I did a good job at beating myself up sometimes.

Getting sober was one of the three pivotal events in my life, along with becoming an actor and having a child. Of the three, finding my sobriety was the hardest thing.

I was brought up by my mother and my two sisters, although they’re older than me and fled the nest very young, so I was technically raised as an only child, but I was very much loved.

Political correctness has become a straightjacket.

People who know me , they know I have a sense of humor, I’m a bit of a joker, a bit of a clown really, and I would love someone to exploit that side of me and send me a romantic comedy.

I was never really that interested in the punk movement. I was a blues guy: I liked Motown, James Brown.

Interesting things come your way but as you get older, your lifestyle changes. I don’t want to travel; I don’t want to be in a hotel room away from my family.

I took a bit of a back seat, I had kids and I wanted to focus on them. There’s that period in the late ’90s, the early 2000s, where I didn’t do a great deal.

Overall I enjoy a certain anonymity. I live a very normal, very ordinary life.

So Harry Potter came in and it is nice that I have kids of the right age. I took them to London and they walked around the set and met Harry Potter and that is thrilling.

He who serves the public best, makes the highest profits.

It had been only through books-at best, no more than vicarious cultural transfusions-that I had managaed to keep myself alive in a negatively vital way.

In an age that is utterly corrupt, the best policy is to do as others do.

Talking with a friend is nothing else but thinking aloud.

Freedom is not something that one people can bestow on another as a gift. Thy claim it as their own and none can keep it from them.

Use the worst colour you can find in each place – it usually is the best.

Live as you like best and your character will take care of itself.

Compassion opposes this order and is therefore best thought of as being in some way supernatural.