“I never go on the net or the web, or whatever it’s called.”

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 one of those weird people who doesn’t even own a computer.

Try to be in the day. Try to not have today stolen from you by anxiety about yesterday or tomorrow.”

Anyone who can do the splits and come back up on the backbeat, as James Brown and Prince can, has my eternal respect.

As you get older you feel you need to pay more attention to what is around you and relish it. I’m greedy for beauty.

I used to joke that one of the reasons there was a lack of classical work on my CV was because I couldn’t operate in those kinds of trousers. Which is a joke, but it’s actually also true – if I want to appear in public I want to look my best.

I don’t even own a car.

I did pick up a guitar once, but the strings hurt my fingers so I put it down again.

I love playing half squid/half crab guy because you can get away with a level of acting that if you tried it anywhere else they’d arrest you for crimes against acting.

I wanted to be a journalist, I thought it was glamorous and that I’d meet beautiful women in the rain.

What is called generosity is usually only the vanity of giving; we enjoy the vanity more than the thing given.

This so-called fame or being better off doesn’t really attract me at all.

This so-called contemporary art is not a form, but a philosophy of society.

I am very much interested in the so-called useless object. I mean, it takes perfect craftsmanship, beautiful material carefully measured and crafted, but at the same time it’s really useless.

The so-called peace path is not peace and it is not a substitute for jihad and resistance

One of the reasons why my album is called ‘Forget the World’ is because when you listen to the world, you make stupid mistakes.

Don’t get caught up on ‘I’m brown, black, white, red, blue, whatever.’ You gotta ask, what were you called before 1492?

So in that respect I could be called one, although I don’t think I’ll go off the rails.