One of the great injustices in fiction is that on the whole people with romantic yearnings have romantic faces. But in real life it's not always like that.
I have derived enormous confidence from being a husband and father.
Plenty of friendships are sustainable through dinners and lunches, but will not stand a week away. So be careful with whom you go on holiday.
I always like to arrive at the airport early to enjoy breakfast and lounge about so that when I get on the plane all my travel fever has disappeared.
It's the gloomy things that need our help, if everything in the garden is sunny, why meddle?
I have fits of melancholia when I watch the news, but we all do, don't we?
In my defence I can only say that her past, too, like mine, like everyone's in fact, was a locked box. Occasionally we allow people a peep, but generally only at the top level. The darker streams of our memories we negotiate alone.
I mean the truth is, I've always been interested in the whole setup of the old world.
Ninety-eight per cent of actors who actually make a living do so in front of a camera.
I just don't believe in generalisations.
For most directors, the scriptwriter is about as welcome on set as a member of the Taliban.
Sometimes you watch one of your favorite shows from 20 years ago and you think, 'I'm loving this, but golly, it's going at the speed of a snail.'
We live a life that is often spent in crowds - parties, festivals and first nights - so it's nice to avoid them.
In the end, drama is successful if you care about the people.
I think other people's depression is frightfully dreary, don't you?
I don't think I'm an unkind person, I don't think my books are unkind, and I don't think my readers are unkind.
You see, in America, it's quite standard for an actor to sign, at the beginning of a series, for five or seven years. The maximum any British agent will allow you to have over an actor is three years.
The moment I was introduced to my wife, Emma, at a party I thought, here she is - and 20 minutes later I told her she ought to marry me. She thought I was as mad as a rat. She wouldn't even give me her telephone number - and she wrote in her diary: "A funny little man asked me to marry him."
I think American television changed world television in its reinvention of the series.
I love 'Sex and the City;' I think I've seen every episode.
I always loved movies and the cinema; we always used to go to see films as a family.
When people are feeling insecure about their jobs and there are cuts to be made, it's hard to put up an argument that the film industry needs funding.
If you're supposed to be a 'personality,' then you might as well have a personality.
A lot of actors find it impossible not to ask for the audience's sympathy. They have a need to twinkle.
My childhood was a happy one, spent in a tall house in South Kensington and later in East Sussex, but my early and mid teens were less successful.
