“Prince, who is a genius of the highest order, can come back up while singing and playing the guitar.”

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. .

I think in the old days, everybody used to act really quickly because Hollywood was built by theatre people.

I have no memory, any at all, of actually performing the play, no recall in terms of the lines. I can’t tell you any line from any play I’ve ever done.

Emma Watson is adorable in the extreme. She is such a lovely person.

I guess part of the hit-man appeal is the solitude. Everybody is lured to the idea of the solitary life.

One of the things that is assumed about actors is that they are extrovert, which is almost never the case, in my experience.

The job is the same – to attempt to make it sound like you’ve never said it before and as if it’s just occurred to you. And that’s the same whether you’re on camera or whether you’re on stage in a room full of people.

When you have a family, or even when you’re just seeing a girl, it’s difficult to be skint.

I really have no interest in delivering the iambic pentameter, I just want to kill myself. I don’t mind other people doing it. I say that, but really I don’t want to watch other people doing it. I get embarrassed.

I admire David Hare as much as I admire certainly any writer ever. What I like about his writing is it is very conscientiously.

Standing in front of a fake mountain with fake snow falling and seven girls dressed as Santarettes will stay in my memory.

I’m not a good guitar player.

I loved playing the guitar and I knew I was pretty good at it, so that’s what I wanted to do with my life.

A lot of times, I played bass on songs. Gene plays guitar on some songs.

I can’t even read notes. But I can teach someone how to make a guitar smoke.

I don’t like to practice; I like spontaneity. When I don’t play guitar for a week and I pick it up again, I play better.

I went to my friend’s house one day, and he had an electric guitar he had just bought with a tiny little amp

I’ll get up there and I’ll do my guitar solos in one of those space outfits.

My life has been a roller coaster ride, but somehow I’ve always been able to land on my feet and still play the guitar.