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

I do believe female directors, as well as our female writer, can bring out male vulnerability that some men can’t because they can’t face it.

I don’t want to be like the actor who rehearses everything in the bathroom, then comes to the set and carries on completely uninterrupted while the other actors tiptoe away.

The number of choices you make in the event that you see on stage, those choices are sometimes largely determined by the rehearsal process and the experiments that you go through and the choices that you make in the rehearsal room, not in front of an audience.

I think if I were to go back on stage I might be in great danger of acting.

In order to inhabit a villain, you mustn’t care what the audience think of you. That’s not why you are there. You mustn’t care for a second whether the audience likes you or dislikes you. Your villain has to be way beyond that.

The many many imponderables come together when a film opens and for all sorts of reasons it may or may not succeed.

I would like to make it known, on this program, loud and clear, that I would absolutely embrace with all five of my arms being a Bond villain.

You cannot learn a lesson of profound forgiveness unless you understand what it is to be wounded and forgive that which has wounded you.

I’m open to any project, but my joyful projects are those through which I can say something and through which I can speak to the an audience of people in the world, and I can be that vehicle through which something can be said, I find that entirely thrilling and joyful.

The leaping Jaguar on the bonnet, to me, makes it look more like a hunter than something that is getting away. It’s a hunter. Richard III definitely would have had a chauffeur driven Jaguar MK X.

All the great writers root their characters in true human behaviour.

We are adjusters. We empathize, we change rhythm and above all we listen to our fellow actors-if they’re good actors.

They’re a very strange lot actors, very strange people.

The hierarchy of class in London was rigid. It was like a religion. It still is to a certain extent.

I honestly have no strategy whatsoever. I’m waiting for that script to pop through the letterbox and completely surprise me.

It’s Sir Ben. I’ve not been a Mister for two years.

Every man is born with the faculty of reason and the faculty of speech, but why should he be able to speak before he has anything to say?

What a wonderful thing is to be able to contribute to the restoration of someone’s health. It’s not only a feeling that I’m worth something, but that I have something to contribute.

So far from being able to answer for my sins, I cannot even answer for my righteousness!

Leadership is more likely to be assumed by the aggressive than by the able, and those who scramble to the top are more often motivated by their own inner torments.

It would be great to just be able to ignore everything and pitch to a spot, to suppress the intellect and let the intuition take over.

By doing this we give them an opportunity to elevate their personal situations, which eventually decreases our need to take care of them and empowers them to be able to exercise compassion toward others.

Pooh is able to accomplish what he does because he is simpleminded.

You’ve got to be success minded. You’ve got to feel that things are coming your way when you’re out selling; otherwise, you won’t be able to sell anything.