“Acting is not a competition; everything must be done for the good of the film or else everybody loses.”

My mum never understood how much I earned. When I told her I earned a million pounds a film, she said, ‘How much is that?’

Maybe it’s time we all stop trying to outsmart the truth and let it have its day.

I feel like 35. At 35 you’re old enough to know something and young enough to look forward to what you can do with the knowledge. So I stayed at 35!

The old guys like me started in the theatre. I was in the theatre for nine years.

When I look in the mirror, I see someone who’s happy with how he looks, because I was never one of the handsome Hollywood people. And I’ve had success as I’ve gotten older, because I’m able to play characters. I no longer get the girl, but I get the part.

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.

In my opinion, everybody is getting older and older. We have a great deal of dementia because nobody grew old enough to get it.

I’ve never taken drugs – if you take a drug of your choice, you get some ecstatic feeling.

I never listened to the people who said I should give it up, which is the main advice I got.

Obsession is a young man’s game, and my only excuse is that I never grew old.

I don’t see myself as anything. I just wander around getting on with my life.

First of all, I choose the great roles, and if none of these come, I choose the mediocre ones, and if they don’t come, I choose the ones that pay the rent.

Be patient.Of course it will come. It took me years to get an Oscar.

Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath.

There was a certain moment. I was about 61 – two, three or four, and I got a script. And I sent it back to the producer saying – “I don’t wanna do it. The part’s too small.” And he sent it back to me, he said, “You shouldn’t read the lover. You should read the father.

I prefer to remake flops. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was a remake of a flop, and The Quiet American is a remake of a flop.

My goal is to continue to learn, grow, and elevate my competition with every fight.

The best competition I have is against myself to become better.

You wanna know what scares people? Success. When you don’t make moves and when you don’t climb up the ladder, everybody loves you because you’re not competition.

The most meaningful way to differentiate your company from your competition, is to do an outstanding job with information.

The competition between me and Bill Gates, probably: Who can spend money more effectively that can do better philanthropy.

Don’t bother doing something unless you’re radically different from the competition.

The future of Japan’s economic growth depends on us having the willpower and the courage to sail without hesitation onto the rough seas of global competition.

I enjoy the competition and whatever it takes throughout the competition, I will do it.