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

One is that you legislate according to natural selection, the other is that you don’t. You have compassion, you try and help people. It’s a fundamental clash between two people who happen to love each other, which complicates everything.

I don’t normally watch films I’m in because I’m squeamish about that and it takes me quite a long time to recover and I have to go to work. I’m not being coy or cute, but it’s just true.

I’m probably the only person who actually remembers pirate radio.

I got briefly mistaken for someone who might be good in bed, which was very, very good.

If I ruled the world, every woman would have a Chanel suit in her wardrobe.

I don’t want to associate myself with any specific group of politicians.

I do think 3D has seriously improved, since I was a boy. It’s fabulous.

When you are in something that you’re proud of and it’s funny and it’s a good night out and all of those things, there’s nothing quite like it. The rewards are proportionate to the amount of alarm and distress it causes you.

I like being in kids’ movies, and I like being in family movies.

I have a perfectly average skewed perception of myself. We often don’t know what we’re like.

I learned far too late in life that a long list of letters after someone’s name is no guarantee of compassion, kindness, humour, all the far more relevant stuff.

To be serious, the things you really want to relive are things like bedtime with your daughter when she becomes incredibly entertaining ’cause she doesn’t want to go to sleep.

Anti-Semitism and Fascism have a long, mysterious, bewildering, poisonous and vile history and it’s not exclusive to the Germans.

I don’t spend a lot of time with anybody.

Actors always talk about taking their work home and I always think: ‘What are you on? You just turn it off. You are at work and then you go home.’

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 really not that good at Guitar Hero!

Anyone who’s got a guitar, you like to pick it up. I can play a couple of songs, some ’50s rock and roll, a bit of Elvis. That’s it, really – I’m not a musician, I’m not a singer.

Since I was a kid, when I pick up my guitar it’s been hard for me to write some sort of bubblegum lyrics. It’s not really ever been my route.

I’ve always found it pretty difficult to write a happy song. Since I was a kid, when I pick up my guitar it’s been hard for me to write some sort of bubblegum lyrics. It’s not really ever been my route.

If You’re going to sweep the floor, sweep it better than anybody in town. And if You’re going to play the guitar, really, really, really get in it, and don’t be jivin’.

Bass is for people who can’t play guitar.

Playing guitar is like telling the truth.

I call myself a blues singer, but you ain’t never heard me call myself a blues guitar man.