Every part I play is just a variant of my own personality. No real character actor, of course, just me.
I used to be gay, but I was forced to give it up, because it made my eyes water.
Like a heartbeat. Something inside me. Some dream. I think it's being a dreamer as a child. Dreamy kids become actors, don't they?
A child did approach me in a restaurant in Cornwall, but he thought I was Gandalf.
For an actor to remain a child is rather important. It's a childlike, dreamy thing, acting, if you think about it. It's the sort of thing children fantasise about, playing cowboys and Indians in the street. I think that acting is just a highly refined development of that.
There were no spells at my school, just a smack in the mouth.
There are some actors who are rehearsal actors, and some who are not. I am not. Having said that, I don't know what I am talking about.
I learn the lines that JK Rowling or whoever writes them, and say them.
There's no subtext in Harry Potter really; it's all magic, anything can happen. Why do I say this? Because it's a magic spell. It's quite nice in a way. There is a real freedom to it.
I'm very flower-like. I love classical music. I go to ballet and I cry. There's nothing so beautiful.
I never met my theater fans. I'm out the stage door five minutes after the curtain goes up. So that's it. I don't even know who comes, but thank God they do come. I can't tell. I keep my head down. I don't meet them. The fans from "Harry Potter" are kids who stop me in the street. I love that. That's terrific. I was amazed how many do.
I live in fear of being a contented passenger. I'd rather get parts I can't play.
I just hate the idea of being well known. I know that is almost impossible if you're an actor who has done okay, but I've always fought against it.
Yeah, I like causing trouble. It's the teddy boy in me. I used to be a teddy boy. Feeling slightly inferior and wanting to cause a bit of bother and get some action going on in the room rather than get bored stiff.
I belong to quite a lot of learned societies. We collect firearms and discuss them at dinners and clubs and things.
Television has dried up for my generation, so its plays and films.
I've always tried to be an actor who... I just plod on and try to keep my mouth shut, mind my own business. I find the whole thing about people's lives... I can't understand it. I'm always astonished that people want to know anything about me.
Paul Schofield said something like, 'If I'm not acting in a play, I don't really exist.' Those weren't the exact words, but he meant it's only when I'm acting in a play that I've got something to say about the world. And then why should I talk, when people can come to see it?
I promise myself that I would go and do a play every year.
I'm an anorak. I've always been an obsessive collector of things. Richard Briers collects stamps. I collect cars and guns, which are much more expensive, and much more difficult to store.
I am a theatre actor, but the last ten years I've taken parts in movies because it keeps me in money.
You get used to being lazy doing films, but classical theatre's going to finish me off.
Oh yeah, I'd love to be a comedian. I've done a lot, but always in the confines of plays.
