“The industry has changed. Two years ago I could tell a company I’ve got Russell Crowe and that would get the film made. Now they’d ask ‘And who’s the girl?’ Just one famous face isn’t enough any more.”

People who know me , they know I have a sense of humor, I’m a bit of a joker, a bit of a clown really, and I would love someone to exploit that side of me and send me a romantic comedy.

I was never really that interested in the punk movement. I was a blues guy: I liked Motown, James Brown.

Interesting things come your way but as you get older, your lifestyle changes. I don’t want to travel; I don’t want to be in a hotel room away from my family.

I took a bit of a back seat, I had kids and I wanted to focus on them. There’s that period in the late ’90s, the early 2000s, where I didn’t do a great deal.

Overall I enjoy a certain anonymity. I live a very normal, very ordinary life.

So Harry Potter came in and it is nice that I have kids of the right age. I took them to London and they walked around the set and met Harry Potter and that is thrilling.

Growing up in a particular neighborhood, growing up in a working-class family, not having much money, all of those things fire you and can give you an edge, can give you an anger.

People have an idea that one is in control of a career, a lot more than you really are. You can engineer things to an extent. But you are at the mercy of what comes in across the desk.

I like these calm little moments before the storm, it reminds me of Beethoven.

What other people think of me is none of my business.

You can play older than yourself. You can play younger than yourself up to a point, and then that just becomes impossible because you carry a weight with you that you can’t shift, unless you have very boyish looks.

I don’t think Hollywood knows what to do with me. I would imagine that when it comes to romantic comedies, my name would be pretty low down on the list.

To be able to do this job in the first place you’ve got to have a bit of an ego.

The thing a drama school can’t give you is instinct. It can sharpen instinct but that can’t be taught, and you have to have intuition. It’s an essential ingredient.

The building of America has had its fair share of mistakes, but it’s a constitution that’s the jewel of democracy, the envy of many, and it’s the most generous nation in the world.

I’m still a member of the Empire! Although I sometimes feel like an American with a British accent – you get contaminated after so long.

You can complain about what you can’t change or you can focus on what you can change.

You are the only person you can actually change.

Music is so important. It changes thinking, it influences everybody, whether they know it or not. Music knows no boundary lines.

CO2 is the exhaling breath of our civilization, literally… Changing that pattern requires a scope, a scale, a speed of change that is beyond what we have done in the past.

If your religion does not change you, then you had better change your religion.

The Scriptures were not given to increase our knowledge, but to change our lives.

Its interesting how a change in your perspective can change everything.

In this ever-changing society, the most powerful and enduring brands are built from the heart.