Actors are agents of change. A film, a piece of theater, a piece of music, or a book can make a difference. It can change the world.
You can act truthfully or you can lie. You can reveal things about yourself or you can hide. Therefore, the audience recognizes something about themselves or they don't -- You hope they don't leave the theatre thinking that was nice...now where's the cab?'
When I am asked about influences, I always say I bow down to Fred Astaire, because when you look at him dancing you never look at his extremities, do you? You look at his centre. What you never see is the hours of work that went into the routines, you just see the breathtaking spirit and freedom.
I'm always aware of the camera and it feels like that's the audience.
Maverick is a word which appeals to me more than misfit. Maverick is active, misfit is passive.
Acting touches nerves you have absolutely no control over.
I am hellbent on defying your expectations, at every turn, and even if you don't like what's being done, I dare you to find it uninteresting.
I love perfumes. Every morning when my girlfriend and I come down to the courtyard in our block of flats we're assailed by the most delicious scent - jasmine round a doorway. It almost makes me swoon.
With the best intentions, the job of acting can become a display of accumulated bad habits, trapped instincts and blocked energies. Working with the Alexander Technique has given me sightings of another way... Mind and body, work and life together. Real imaginative freedom.
Mellow doesn't describe me. I'm hungry every day.
The point about a great story is that it's got a beginning, a middle and end.
I never talk about 'Harry Potter' because I think that would rob children of something that's private to them. I think too many things get explained, so I hate talking about it.
Those of you who are not aware of my brilliant career as a stand up comic, I'm not aware of it either so we might well wonder what we're doing here.
I can only see my limitations. That's just who I am.
One thing I will say - my job gets harder and harder. The more you understand about what you are capable of, the less the instrument can do it physically. It's an inverse equation, if that's the right phrase. I just slammed those two words together. It sounded right.
One of the most, in a weird way, encouraging things a director can say to an actor - I know this as an actor - is when you ask them a question, they say, I don't know - 'cause it means there's some space there for you to find out. And it means that there's going to be a process.
I'm still living the life where you get home and open the fridge and there's half a pot of yogurt and a half a can of flat Coca-Cola.
I have just returned from the dubbing studio where I spoke into a microphone as Severus Snape for absolutely the last time.
What's interesting about the process of acting is how often you don't know what you're doing.
The difference between being an actor and a director is simple. The director has to hide his panic; the actor doesn't.
Originally, theater was my life. It was what I assumed I'd spend my working life doing - if I was lucky. Then along came movies.
I have this feeling that if I could sort out what's on my dining room table, everything would fall into place.
I don't think it's right that everybody knows everything about me.
I get stage fright and gremlins in my head saying: 'You're going to forget your lines'.
I approach every part I'm asked to do and decide to do from exactly the same angle: who is this person, what does he want, how does he attempt to get it, and what happens to him when he doesn't get it, or if he does?
