“There’s so much crap talked about acting.”

As a singer, I might have fallen among thieves. I wonder if I’d still be alive by now.

There was one titanic guiding light on the film set, and I was in the presence of a true Mahatma, in the deepest and most profound sense of the word.

Hamlet is an astonishing intelligence.

Well, it’s wonderful to be identified strongly with my work.

There is always something about the villains that I’m able to play, quote unquote, that isn’t villainous.

I have never felt bereft of anything.

I just loved playing a man who was unafraid of making an idiot of himself in the process of falling in love. I found that admirable.

The biggest surprise in a man’s life is old age.

If I were to play somebody who ran a fish and chip shop, I would not work in a fish and chip shop for three months. Staring at chips is not going to help me in my performance.

I told myself that I would not go back to the camps as an actor ever again, that I was very frightened of wearing a yellow star. It was fear, it was cowardice, I was.

The trick is to try and justify every word on the page and make sure my character is the man who would say that.

Working in film, if you work with great directors, you learn that after every take you must let go. Sitting with my wife at the Academy Awards, we both let the moment just go.

I do remember, as a child, that I always imagined, when I was maybe 6 or 7, my fantasy was that everywhere I went I was being followed by an invisible film crew.

When I choose a role it’s either because I recognise the man, or that I’m very curious to know him. If I neither recognise nor know him, then it is better that I don’t play him.

I always try to find something I admire about every character I play.

I think Romeo and Juliet is uplifting. That’s how much a son wishes to avenge his father. That is how much two young people can love each other.

I love telling stories and acting and entertaining people. I don’t want to make fun of people.

One of the things I like about acting is that, in a funny way, I come back to myself.

I still do my comedy and my performance stuff and my acting so it’s not all-consuming. But I do find myself drawing more and more these days.

Movie acting suits me because I only need to be good for ninety seconds at a time.

I love playing half squid/half crab guy because you can get away with a level of acting that if you tried it anywhere else they’d arrest you for crimes against acting.

That’s what I always enjoyed about acting, the real adrenalin rush. My heart – still before I go on stage – crashing out of my chest. That’s thrilling to me.

I have just gained a deeper and deeper respect for acting and the whole art of it because you’re really trying to live a life and to do the best justification for it.

You know the theory of cell irritability? If you take an amoeba cell and poke it a thousand times, it will change and then re-form into its original shape. And then, the thousandth time you poke this amoeba.