“In film, I find it very useful always to do some preparation before you start rehearsals or start shooting, because there’s so much that’s against you on a film set.”

One of the things I find very difficult about theatre is the repetition – that something can slide away from your original intentions.

I’ve been out to LA a couple of times but, over there, the Grenouille in me always comes to the surface. I feel completely terrified, totally flummoxed, like I don’t understand what the hell is going on. I’ve no desire at all to go back there.

I’ve gone on workout regimes, but I seem to have a system that is very resistant to changing.

Even today, England is a very repressed, repressive country, and there’s pressure to be kind of a certain way, so people do things that ultimately make them sad.

I love the characters I’ve had the opportunity to play.

What I notice about people who are gifted in filmmaking is that they’re great thinkers. They engage with big ideas and they engage with people.

I would have loved to have been a painter or a sculptor. I’m still fascinated by those things.

I am a typical Libran. I tend to see two sides of everything.

I’d like to have a go at directing.

When you have a character to work with, you carry them around in a strange way – they make you look at the world in a different way.

The criminal justice system, like any system designed by human beings, clearly has its flaws.

We are so mired in the complexity of our reactions to other people that when you come across someone who is asocial, there is a simplicity that is refreshing.

Filmmakers tell stories to explore human nature, which is always a flawed thing.

My intuition comes up with better stuff than my head, I think.

I’m really hopeless with technology – I don’t even have a computer.

I wish that the arts were better supported, and you can’t say that enough times, but I also believe that whatever happens, artists will keep going.

When I turned 50, I looked in the mirror and I thought: “Hey, this isn’t the dress rehearsal, this is life and I don’t know how much longer I’m going to have!”

We actually did perform it in front of all those thousands of people. And just beforehand, we had a little dress rehearsal, and there were all these famous wrestlers going around and watching as well. Terrifying.

I’m the last one to get any moves correct. In rehearsals it’s always, ‘OK, one more take for Zac.’

Every actor has three versions of each scene – the one that you rehearse the night before, in your bedroom.

We shot ‘High School Musical’ in eight weeks. I spent longer rehearsing for ‘Hairspray’ than filming ‘High School Musical’.

John showed up to rehearsal with a long list of name suggestions, and I remember each and every one of them.

I’m present at all pyrotechnical rehearsals; and I walk through everything step-by-step.

Meditation is a dress rehearsal for death.