No man is an island, as they say. No. I've tried it. I've gone on retreats at various times in my life for three or four or five days. I was desperate to get out of there and talk to somebody. But I fly fish a lot, and I can only do that really by myself. I find I'm never lonesome when I'm on a river, far from it, but it's a lonely practice.
Looking out for your children is an ongoing process throughout your life.
The putting on of vestments and lighting candles, it's a wonderful ritual that never changes from one Mass to another.
You just get this profound feeling of instability . . . the Earth isn't stable anymore and then it passes and it becomes more infrequent, but I still get it sometimes.
Well I think people think sex is controversial. Not always, but certainly it's something to be discussed.
I get fed up with plots that are driven by someone constantly getting information on a computer.
Sitting down to eat in our house is about sharing, you know, talking about the day you've had, be it in school or work or whatever, so that's very important to us.
I certainly notice the vitality in Belfast, which wasn't there in the Seventies. There was a war going on then. Now there are cranes everywhere. There really is a sense of renewal and hope.
There's a ruthlessness to the city now that wasn't there before. I was in Dublin a few months ago, when we were shooting Breakfast on Pluto, and if I saw one kid throwing up on the street, I must have seen a hundred of them.
I love working with children and this young boy, Thomas Sangster, is quite a remarkable young actor. He raises your game, you know. He certainly raised mine.
I think I survived by running away some. Running away to work.
Yeah, well, I finally stopped smoking for good.
I never thought about becoming a professional singer, but I am in touch with Bono about releasing a musical movie. It will be about an Irish band during the '70s who are looking for fortune in Las Vegas. I should play the singer of the band but I don't want to sing in front of anybody.
In Los Angeles, it's like they jog for two hours a day and then they think they're morally right. That's when you want to choke people, you know?
People ask me if I ever feel outside the Hollywood loop, and I never do, because both of us do a lot of theatre, so it's great for New York and it's also half-way between Europe and the west coast, so it's the best of both worlds.
Yes, I'm Catholic; I'm proud of it. But I had lots of Protestant friends.
In bed at night, I could be reading some book, and I'll come across a sentence that's totally unrelated to some scene I did years ago. But I'll play the scene back in my mind and think, I did that wrong - I should've opened the door more slowly.
Forget the statistics...we have to do more. You cannot look these children in the eye and see how desperate is their situation without wanting to help.
I'm fairly comfortable in fight sequences and stuff like that. I've done a few of them. I'm comfortable with that sort of stuff as long as I'm reasonably fit, and it's fun to do actually. I'm like a kid in a toy shop doing that stuff.
I am totally for gun control in the U.S. The population of America is roughly 300 million and there are 300 million guns in this country, which is terrifying. Every day we're seeing some kid running rampant in a school. And do you know what the gun lobby's response to Newtown was? The National Rifle Association's official response was, 'If that teacher had been armed' It's crazy.
The Irish Catholic side was married to the life of an actor and I found out acting could be a form of prayer.
But, you know, there's still an argument, there's still ten states that outlaw premarital sex, and many more states where adultery is still outlawed and a crime.
I was an OK boxer, I wasn't great, I was OK, but I loved the discipline of getting together every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, usually Saturday afternoons too, with a whole bunch of mates and training, very, very hard for about two-and-half hours.
Hollywood is throwing action movies at me.
I do shadow boxing and use a heavy bag, but I don't spar with anyone.
