Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
It wasnt the greatest script in the world, but not many people can say theyve played a wicked king in a swashbuckling Arthurian special-effects monster movie.
It wasn't the greatest script in the world, but not many people can say they've played a wicked king in a swashbuckling Arthurian special-effects monster movie.
It wasn't a good idea to work on 'Naked' in the first months of a marriage. I was living apart from my wife in a flat overflowing with books I was reading for the part.
I really like Los Angeles. I like the weather, the openness of it, the beach, the mountains, the desert. I find it inspiring. I get quite a lot of writing done out there.
I used to write out of angst. My writing was quite miserable, quite angry, even when it was funny. It was based on this sadness and tired emotional disdain for the world.
I'd only read a bit of the first book. And I just knew about all the media furor over it. But I'd not read books 2 or 3. I'd just read a bit of it. And I'd seen the films.
The world is enormously dangerous and scary. I worry very much for my daughter. I'm not sure we're in control any more, and I think the Internet is partly responsible for that.
Before Anna, I'd had a few relationships and I'm glad I've been around a bit. I know where it's gone wrong or know who are the wrong people for me and who I might be wrong for.
I'd been a stepparent for about two years with a woman who had a child, and I came to realize I adored children and was good with them. So I was very happy when Anna got pregnant.
A lot of the city boys in London, a lot of the hedge-fund, young city workers at the height of the financial boom were a lot of working-class, brilliantly minded young fellows and women.
I'm much more Buddhist. I mean, I'm not a Buddhist. I should be so lucky to be a Buddhist, a real Buddhist, but of all the things I investigated, that seems to make the most sense to me.
'Naked' kind of kicked me off into the film world. It just so happens that all of the things that I have been offered have been films, and I've enjoyed the travel that goes along with that.
I had such a nice time making it, and I can't wait to make the fifth one. The whole crew were just really, really lovely. All the costume people, the make-up girls, the kids - even my driver.
I could, of course, have written about the film world and the jealousy there and the frequent belief that others don't have talent. But, for some reason, it just struck me to write about art.
I've always tended to write comedy, but I'd hate to just write some kind of sitcom or a lighthearted series of jokes and slapstick. I wanted to talk about some deeper things within the comedy.
I've been offered TV things over the years, but usually, that's about that I don't want to be away from home for that long, because it's a long time to be away your home country and my family.
'Naked' propelled me into a whole other league. America started calling. I went over to Los Angeles and met all those people, and I started doing a few American films of various levels of quality.
And it was only released in London last week, so when I go back to England Monday or whatever, I am expecting heaps of adulation. I'm hoping there is. If that doesn't happen I will be disappointed.
Yeah, well that's the best thing about it, I think, is knowing kids and kids getting mental when they know you're in it. Any kid you meet and anyone I know tells the kid you're in it and they get short of breath.
Publishing a novel was such a proud thing for me. When I was a kid, I used to say to my mum and dad, 'I'm going to write a book. You'll see.' So when I did ,and it was published, and people liked it, it was great.
I think Varga is a manifestation, certainly, and someone who can thrive and profit from the world's failure and has worked out the operation, whatever the operation may be, that he's about, which will remain a mystery.
I often do that with characters, going back to my bloody drama-school days, in terms of equating them with creatures. And it's very much there as a theme of all the seasons of 'Fargo' as well: the predator and the prey.
I'd had a relationship with a French girl, a Japanese girl, an American girl, a Filippina and she was there all the time - a Lancashire girl. I thought: 'It's a Lancashire girl I was looking for. Why didn't I realize it?
I'd had a relationship with a French girl, a Japanese girl, an American girl, a Filippina and she was there all the time - a Lancashire girl. I thought: 'It's a Lancashire girl I was looking for. Why didn't I realize it?'
I got hooked to American news like a great TV season. It plays like fiction. I would come home from work, and I would put it on, and I would stay up until 2 in the morning watching it and get up in the morning and watch it.
I enjoy things that are so far away from me; that's why, when I play things that are a little bit closer to me, I get really bored. When it's something that's the antithesis of what I am, there's much more to lose yourself in.
Restoration I did because I really loved e novel and I like Michael Hoffman, who directed it, but it wasn't a really challenging part for me. I'm not critical of the film: I just don't think I gave a very interesting performance.
It was so boring, and 'Dragonheart' was so unchallenging - there was no research involved or any rehearsal. So I was in my hotel room every night with no English-language TV except 'Beavis and Butt-head' at 10 o'clock every night.
It's certainly not easy having to spend a lot of time apart, and having a five-year-old child who's got to be at school. So we need to learn how to organize our time really well because for months we will be in two different countries.
I keep myself content by doing lots of different stuff and make sure that my next role is completely different to the last. I just enjoy the versatility of it, the challenge of doing lots of different things. It keeps the job interesting.
What we do is ridiculous! I think that even when what I'm doing is serious, even when I'm not turning into a werewolf. It's a silly thing to do, isn't it? It's what you do in the playground when you're kids - but actors just never stop doing it.
I wanted to do 'Fargo' rather than do a TV production. I've been offered TV things over the years, but usually, that's about that I don't want to be away from home for that long because it's a long time to be away your home country and my family.
I walk to Oxford Street and climb on the number 8. It's freezing and it starts to rain and it's the ugliest bus I've ever seen, rattling down the ugliest streets, in the ugliest city, in the ugliest country, in the ugliest of all possible worlds.
I see people around me with very unhappy love lives, who may have held out for that perfect somebody. And the failure to achieve that brings along a lot of bitterness which is very unattractive; therefore they're probably less likely to achieve it.
I started doing the big Hollywood stuff, and I realised, 'Oh, there's no rehearsal at all; you just turn up on the set, and sometimes you haven't even met the other actor, or the woman who's playing your wife, and you're suddenly in bed with them.'
I don't worry. I'm more stoical. Of course I have insecurities. I fear getting older. I fear death and illness. I'm not prone to depression, but I get depressed because everybody gets depressed. Suddenly I'm away from my family or doing a job I'm not enjoying.
I can remember, after I started doing films, my mum began going to more arthouse films. She went to see 'Edward Scissorhands' and phoned me up and said: 'What was that all about? He had scissors on his hands.' Good question. I think she should review films on Channel 4.
That's one of the main things I've learned: honesty is paramount. The biggest thing I try and instil in my daughter. My deepest regrets have been to do with times that I've been dishonest. There's nothing worse than getting caught out in a lie. It's excruciatingly embarrassing.
When I'm sat in the pub with my mates, they've got their stories: Richard and Tracy have split up, they went to Arsenal and this fight broke out... My anecdotes are like, 'I was in this bar, and Michelle Pfeiffer rang, and I had wax in my ear, so I couldn't hear what she was saying...'
The thing about 'Harry Potter' is it's great fun because of the people - I was usually with Julie Walters and Mark Williams, Brendan Gleeson, Robbie Coltrane, and the kids. Wonderful, funny, amazing people. If you're going to hang around on a set bored, you might as well do it with Julie Walters.
Everybody knows someone like that: wonderful, attractive people full of passion and ideals. You envy them, but you know there's a dark side, which is brutal and cruel and violent. That dark side informs what's wonderful about them, and the passion and rage inform the darkness; they're inseparable.
Alfonso Cuarón, in the rehearsals, without J.K. Rowling's knowledge, told me that [my character] was, in fact, gay. So I'd been playing a part like a gay man for quite a long time. Until it turned out that I indeed got married to Tonks. I changed my whole performance after that. Just saw it as a phase he went through.
The oddest things happen to me. It goes in seasons. Nothing will happen for a long time, and I miss it, and I remember how these strange coincidences used to happen to me and how amazing it was, how it made me want to believe in something. A year will go by, and then a slew of them will come along, like buses, one after another.