“In cinema, the leading player is the director.”

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.

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 am not ready to fit into the mould of commercial cinema.

I like watching film, I go to the cinema, but a lot of times I go to see kids’ films.

Movie acting is about covering the machinery. Stage acting is about exposing the machinery. In cinema, you should think the actor is playing himself, if he’s that good. It looks very easy. It should. But it’s not, I assure you.

Cinema has no boundaries, we all belong to the same artistic community.

Cinema is changing every week, and multiplex audiences are demanding every week.

I love going to the cinema. Whenever I get time off, that’s where I go.

Cinema reflects culture and there is no harm in adapting technology, but not at the cost of losing your originality.

Dreams are the cinema of our minds. And you’re the cinema of my senses.