“I don’t even own a car.”

I’m not famous for my back story investigations; I’m lucky that I work with good writers and it’s usually in the script.

I’m one of those weird people who doesn’t even own a computer.

Try to be in the day. Try to not have today stolen from you by anxiety about yesterday or tomorrow.”

Anyone who can do the splits and come back up on the backbeat, as James Brown and Prince can, has my eternal respect.

As you get older you feel you need to pay more attention to what is around you and relish it. I’m greedy for beauty.

I used to joke that one of the reasons there was a lack of classical work on my CV was because I couldn’t operate in those kinds of trousers. Which is a joke, but it’s actually also true – if I want to appear in public I want to look my best.

I did pick up a guitar once, but the strings hurt my fingers so I put it down again.

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.

I wanted to be a journalist, I thought it was glamorous and that I’d meet beautiful women in the rain.

In one way, an attempt to reproduce the way people actually speak, but it’s not just an attempt at naturalism. It’s stylised and it’s heightened, to great effect. It’s elegant and it’s funny and that’s the way to my heart, frankly.

Whatever you do, don’t smoke’. I have had to recover from that and been lucky that I have been able to stop.

You have all these plans to act, and maybe do it rather elegantly, and then they turn the rain machine on.

The way the elderly are treated, and in some cases warehoused and medicated, rather than nurtured and listened to, is distressing.

Hunger is almost like something the West does. It’s almost like the direct result of the way the West performs.

I love imaginative representations of a possible near-future, where you look at the technology and you think, “Well, yeah, that could really nearly be true.” I like those kinds of backgrounds.

Somebody asked me recently, ‘Have you done a lot of plays?’ I thought hang on. .

An enemy of innovation could be your own sales force.

I am only speaking of my own behalf.

It is important to make your own stuff. Even if you are not an actor, it is important to not stop involving yourself as a creative person.

Over all, I want you to discover the joy of creation by your own hand.

There’s no need to explain anything at length. Let go of love and hate and let things be. That’s all that I do in my own practice.

I believe everyone should have an opportunity to search for truth their own way.

Anything you make has its own wavelength and its own sound. It’s like a tuning fork, until the things that resonate are correct for it.

Although you may spend your life killing, You will not exhaust all your foes. But if you quell your own anger, your real enemy will be slain.