“There’s so much crap talked about acting.”

In order to inhabit a villain, you mustn’t care what the audience think of you. That’s not why you are there. You mustn’t care for a second whether the audience likes you or dislikes you. Your villain has to be way beyond that.

The many many imponderables come together when a film opens and for all sorts of reasons it may or may not succeed.

I would like to make it known, on this program, loud and clear, that I would absolutely embrace with all five of my arms being a Bond villain.

You cannot learn a lesson of profound forgiveness unless you understand what it is to be wounded and forgive that which has wounded you.

I’m open to any project, but my joyful projects are those through which I can say something and through which I can speak to the an audience of people in the world, and I can be that vehicle through which something can be said, I find that entirely thrilling and joyful.

The leaping Jaguar on the bonnet, to me, makes it look more like a hunter than something that is getting away. It’s a hunter. Richard III definitely would have had a chauffeur driven Jaguar MK X.

All the great writers root their characters in true human behaviour.

We are adjusters. We empathize, we change rhythm and above all we listen to our fellow actors-if they’re good actors.

They’re a very strange lot actors, very strange people.

The hierarchy of class in London was rigid. It was like a religion. It still is to a certain extent.

I honestly have no strategy whatsoever. I’m waiting for that script to pop through the letterbox and completely surprise me.

It’s Sir Ben. I’ve not been a Mister for two years.

You don’t go to a town to present the play and have applause at the end of it, but that’s benign conquest. It’s a glorious way of exploring other landscapes and other cultures in a very life-affirming way.

I’m convinced that had I not changed my name, I don’t think I would have had quite the same career curve that I eventually had.

One of the greatest things drama can do, at it’s best, is to redefine the words we use every day such as love, home, family, loyalty and envy. Tragedy need not be a downer.

Equal partners aren’t always what we envision as being manifestly equal. Equality can come in many different shapes and sizes and combinations.

Acting is an uncomfortable business because you have to make yourself vulnerable.

At 15 I had moved out of my parents’ place, and my options were looking pretty narrow. But I had this acting thing and I just wanted to be able to keep going because it was really good. That was all I wanted.

I am learning to be more vulnerable and open on stage. This comes with the development of my acting abilities.

I think that most actors attempt to keep in touch with the child.

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!

The crisis in Europe has affected the US economy by acting as a drag on our exports, weighing on business and consumer confidence and pressuring US financial markets and institutions.

I first got into acting when I was about 12. I started doing speech and drama lessons. All my friends were doing it at the time and my dad encouraged it. He encouraged any extracurricular activity.

Acting is different all the time. When you’re on set, different films, or just even in between, it’s never the same. I think that’s one of the things I love about it.