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

I didn’t go to drama school because, from the first refusal I then, as I said, a couple of weeks later, was offered a professional job, where I am immensely grateful to the journey.

When Attenborough asked me to do Gandhi it was almost like stepping off one boat and stepping on to another, even though both boats are going at 60 miles per hour.

There’s so much crap talked about acting.

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.

No person will deny that the highest degree of attainable accuracy is an object to be desired, and it is generally found that the last advances towards precision require a greater devotion of time, labour, and expense, than those which precede them.

Fast is fine, but accuracy is final. In a gun fight. You need to take your time in a hurry.

Timing and accuracy beats power.

Simply put, you believe that things or people make you unhappy, but this is not accurate. You make yourself unhappy.

Vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage.

Eyes are more accurate witnesses than ears.

One of the hardest things in the world is to convey a meaning accurately from one mind to another.

One of the hardest things in the world is to convey a meaning accurately from one mind to another.