Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
You have to be selfish to be an actor.
Power is always a corrupting influence.
Most feature films are 35-40 shooting days.
You have to attempt to be objective about yourself.
When you get to a certain age, the work begins to thin out.
I like approbation. Any actor who tells you they don't is lying.
Most films are written and made with a hero around 35, or even 25.
I phoned this number and said, Please, sir, I want to be an actor.
Politics is the most corrupt profession on Earth, no matter where you are.
We had five goats, two dogs, a cat and racks of commentaries on Shakespeare.
I've got a range as an actor! There was a time I played dramatic leading men.
I'm playing one of the principal roles, which gives you more clout and more confidence.
I would have liked to have worked with Ralph Richardson and Paul Scofield, but they're dead now.
I'm riddled with cynicism. Whenever anyone says 'trust me,' the hairs go up on the back of my neck.
If I was to put a little flag in everywhere I've been in the world, there'd be a lot of little flags.
I love the Restoration. It's a bit like coming out of the John Major era into the optimism of Tony Blair.
I don't think I've ever been asked to act out bad sex. It's not my style. I've been blessed with good rhythm.
A handful of older, romantic leading men, like Sean Connery, Jack Nicholson, and Robert Redford are still landing parts.
We have to take risks in British television. It has to stop playing to the lowest common denominator and patronising people.
I think it's counterproductive for actors to come to the set with well-thumbed copies of the book their film is adapted from.
People think I have the benefit of a public school education. I have this suave and debonair label, but really, I'm as common as muck.
Actors can't retire. If actors retired, there would be nobody left to play old, wrinkly people. You have to keep going, darling - don't you?
I spent a lot of time [between takes] apologising to Peter Dinklage [Dance's on-screen son, Tyrion Lannister] because I treat him appallingly.
I'm actually as common as mud. I'm not particularly well read, or bred. But the way I look... I seem to have this sort of 'aristocratic' demeanor.
I was a window dresser for Burton's once. What really put me off was the area manager coming round and saying, Charles, I think you're a natch at this.
It's a question of keeping one's eyes and ears open and watching how other people play the game. They're watching me too, to see what my attitude is like.
In my home, I listen to music; I play music: I play guitar and I play ukelele. And I swim and I ride a bike and I do all the things that everybody else does.
By the margin of fair Zurich's waters Dwelt a youth, whose fond heart, night and day, For the fairest of fair Zurich's daughters In a dream of love melted away.
A car to pick me up every day, a chair with my name on it, everybody being very polite... what can you do except sit back and watch it all, try to take it all in?
My mother was a waitress in a Lyons Corner House, but she married up. She was keen on bettering herself. She taught me how to use the right knives and forks and behave properly.
If I talk about Charles Dance I am talking about something else, something I operate and wind up and have to make an impression with and use to transmit someone else's screenplay.
You should encourage a child to show off. You can say to a child, 'Stop being rude,' 'Stop shouting,' 'Stop jumping around on the furniture.' But 'Stop showing off'? That's awful.
My face lends itself to austere characters, and unless they're two-dimensional, I will do them. Any actor will tell you that an interesting villain is much more interesting to play.
I don't like watching television too much; it tires me out for some reason. But I saw a fair bit of 'Game of Thrones' because it was so good. I mostly watched episodes that I wasn't in.
Power is always a corrupting influence. In this mythical time - let's call it medieval, feudal - people in power are dictatorial and don't want their positions of power to be threatened.
We get a successful television series or something, and next season they give you less time and less money, which is something I've never really understood. That doesn't happen with Game of Thrones.
I had a stammer through adolescence. Any fun I'd had performing in school plays disappeared and only came back at 18, when the stammer started to go. Then I thought: 'Well, perhaps I can show off now.'
There is a huge fan base; they're very knowledgeable and very loyal. I was astonished - before I started working on the series, I didn't know anything about 'Game of Thrones.' I hadn't heard of the books.
A while ago, I did a television adaptation of 'Bleak House,' and the character I played, as far as I was concerned, had no redeeming features whatsoever. I wasn't about to try to find any; I didn't need to.
When you have a label stuck on you, people tend to believe it. If someone calls you suave and debonair, you only get offered parts in a suit and a collar and tie. It just so happens I wear them reasonably well.
The job is exactly the same, it just goes on for longer on TV. Most feature films are 35-40 shooting days. This has 10 parts, with different directors for each block. We shoot with two, sometimes three cameras.
Your senses are reeling all the time. Finally you find something to write and the very next day you go out and see something else which totally contradicts what you've written and every conclusion you've come to.
I have to admit that I haven't read any of the books [of George Martin's "Game of Thrones"] and I don't refer to them. Apart from anything else they're very thick [in size] and they frighten me. A terrifying prospect.
I mostly play old period songs, as they suit a ukulele more. I bought it when I saw the tribute concert to George Harrison. Joe Brown came on and sang 'I'll See You In My Dreams,' and there wasn't a dry eye in the house.
On an independent film you're lucky if you get one, but ostensibly the job is the same. There's very little difference, apart from the knowledge that there's a captive audience at the end of it - which you can't always guarantee with a movie.
People like Tywin Lannister are very much victims of that system, and of that environment: 'This is my place, don't threaten it'. I don't know how relevant that is to today. Politics is the most corrupt profession on earth, no matter where you are.
I am made Hand of the King which gives me an enormous amount of power, which I use quite ruthlessly - but skilfully - and Dame Diana Rigg joins us [playing political mastermind the Queen of Thorns] and we have a couple of really good sparring moments.
If you get a bad script, then you start expending energy trying to make a silk purse of a sow's ear. When the script's as good as those on 'Game of Thrones,' say, I don't think there was a single occasion where any of us thought there was a bad scene.
We need to look to our laurels a bit with television in this country. I don't think enough risks are being taken in drama television in the U.K., and I think a lot of programme makers are underestimating the intelligence of the viewing public, basing it all on ratings.
Runners are the lowest of the low in film units. They're paid very, very minimal wages - probably below the national average. And runners are now being asked to drive actors about, as well as their runner duties. It's kind of the same as taking advantage of nurses - it's appalling.