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

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.

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.

Shakespeare doesn’t really write subtext, you play the subtext.

I’m not the best audience for that because I’m not a great science-fiction fan. I just never got off on space ships and space costumes, things like that.

I got obsessed with classical music, I got obsessed with Chopin, with playing the piano.

I think filmmaking should be a wonderfully free collaborative process, and it so very rarely is. I often see directors as jailers of my talent.

Change is vital to any actor. If you keep playing lead after lead, you’re really gonna dry up. Because all those vehicles wean you away from the truths of human behaviour.

I had a guitar when I was 6 or 7, a plastic guitar with the Beatles’ faces on it. It would be a collector’s item now. It would fetch a hefty sum, I imagine.

If one could have a wish, or an alternative life, I would’ve liked to have been John Lennon.

I am sweet and diplomatic in real life.

When a storm comes, it is the trees that get uprooted. Be as humble as the grass and nothing can touch you.

Let me make something clear: I can’t do anything in particular to make others laugh. I do what is necessary for a character. The body language of the character may make others laugh.

I can get caught in many things but there is one thing I will never get caught in, and that is acting – because I don’t act. On screen I am like I am in real life.

The end of education is character.

You never display your character more clearly than when you speak about the character of others.

A lot of people don’t know that I love to love. To have a different kind of mask on me where people feel like I’m not a loving individual. I just love to love, I love everything and everybody, I’m about peace that’s my spirit.

If everything was going smoothly you would never build character.