“That hunger of the flesh, that longing for ease, that terror of incarceration, that insistence on tribal honour being obeyed: all of that exists, and it exists everywhere.”

I think that most actors, and they’re a very strange lot actors, very strange people, but I think that they attempt to keep in touch with the child.

There is so much to do on a film set. It is an extraordinarily invigorating and wonderful place to be, when things are running well.

I think I’m more bonded, emotionally and in a craft sense, to films that tell extraordinary stories about extraordinary destinies.

Family is family over the internet, over Skype, over the telephone. Love is love. You don’t have to actually go through some ritual to prove that you love somebody.

The camera does not like acting. The camera is only interested in filming behaviour. So you damn well learn your lines until you know them inside out, while standing on your head!

As an actor there’s no autonomy, unless you’re prepared to risk the possibility of starving.

I try and reduce myself to an almost blank slate and hope to God that I am creative.

You need particular note or rhythm in the symphony to be that minor key, or that sharp key or major chord. In musical terms, I try to hit the right note. But not alter the score of the music, just emphasize the note correctly.

I’m so dependent on reacting to the other actors on the set, and to the director. I’m very responsive. I react. And I treasure the energy that reaction gives.

Filming is so much to do with rhythm, as is music, and if it isn’t there then you know in the end nobody can save it really, they can’t.

I was fortunate as a young actor, to go straight to the RSC, where I learned that being an actor can bring with it wonderful responsibilities.

You want to know what I want? I’ll tell you what I want. I want back what Bobby Fischer took with him when he disappeared.

If it’s a really well written villain, he probably has more layers than the archetypal good person. So that would be very attractive to an actor. No one chooses to be a villain; it’s usually a reaction to something else.

With narration, you have to be very accurate with your voice. It’s a good exercise to do.

I think that various styles and methods and approaches are an invention of people who don’t understand the process of acting and who try very hard to label things.

I hope I’m able to achieve more on camera through stillness, through focus, through being quite careful to do less on every take, rather than more. So I’m reducing, rather than adding. Which hopefully is a good exercise. That’s what I’d like to do.

I’m not a social person. Not that I’m not at ease. I’m pretty good, but it bores me. Not the people, but the whole thing. What for? It’s not very productive. I only want to do what I have to do: fashion, photography, books. And that’s all.

No rebellious heart is ever at ease with paths established by others.

It is not that we have class prejudice, but only that we find comfort and ease in our own class. And normally there are plenty of people of our own class, or race, or religion to play, live, and eat with, and to marry.

A life of ease is a difficult pursuit.

I am astonished at the ease with which uninformed persons come to a settled, a passionate opinion when they have no grounds for judgment.

Such young men are often awkward, ungainly, and not yet formed in their gait; they straggle with their limbs, and are shy; words do not come to them with ease, when words are required, among any but their accustomed associates.

There is a fluency and an ease with which true mastery and expertise always expresses itself, whether it be in writing, whether it be in a mathematical proof, whether it be in a dance that you see on stage, really in every domain. But I think the question is, you know, where does that fluency and mastery come from?

My soul found ease and rest in the companionship of books.