I love films. I love music. I love poetry and stories. All of that I feel… I sort of get very excited and fed by.
Keats himself spoke about how Shakespeare was capable of erasing himself completely from the characters he had created. As an actor, that is what I'm trying to do.
One of the things I find very difficult about theatre is the repetition - that something can slide away from your original intentions.
Dustin Hoffman also never does the same thing twice which is totally stimulating because you're always getting something new from him. You never really know what he's going to do next, so you have to be on your toes.
For me, it's important to keep a level of anonymity.
I think that sometimes in theater, I don't prepare much beyond going to the rehearsals.
My favorite Bond films are the really early ones, the first ones in fact, like 'Dr. No' and 'From Russia with Love.'
The thing I love about acting is that you can bring something very personal into the open and at the same time remain hidden because you're always playing a character in a story that someone else has imagined. You're always protected.
I'd like to have a go at directing.
The thing about acting is that it's fairly random. At the end of the day you take what drifts past you or what's given to you.
I've gone on workout regimes, but I seem to have a system that is very resistant to changing.
We are so mired in the complexity of our reactions to other people that when you come across someone who is asocial, there is a simplicity that is refreshing.
I don't have any ambition to make lots of money or win an Oscar or anything like that. It's not about that for me.
When I finished my A-levels, I assumed I'd be able to get work as an actor. But I couldn't. I didn't get an audition. Nothing. So I thought I'd better train and then the parts would come.
I think being very thin has had a lot to do with how I've been cast.
Even today, England is a very repressed, repressive country, and there's pressure to be kind of a certain way, so people do things that ultimately make them sad.
I love the characters I've had the opportunity to play.
In film, I find it very useful always to do some preparation before you start rehearsals or start shooting, because there's so much that's against you on a film set.
What I notice about people who are gifted in filmmaking is that they're great thinkers. They engage with big ideas and they engage with people.
I was quite a shy child – not chronically, but I tended to blend into the background.
I think I have a degree of confidence, but I also have terrible insecurity, like anybody does.
I don't think anyone can walk through the world in a state of vulnerability all the time, can they?
