Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I can do posh.
Playing a villain would be great.
At one stage, I wanted to be a folk singer.
I'm not conscious of having changed my accent.
It's nice to have the creature comforts of home.
Writing opera off as intrinsically elitist is absurd.
My ballroom dancing skills are completely non-existent.
My chin - I've got another one underneath the first one.
I have a glass of wine. Red. Generally when I'm cooking.
I did hardly any academic work. I learnt a fair amount, though.
Getting a good education was of immense importance to my parents.
I have got a big deep voice, and that comes in useful for villains.
I've never been to Barcelona, I'd like to go there; also South America.
Try not to worry about embarrassing yourself. That's a lifetime's task.
I've been saying for about 20 years, 'When am I going to get my cop show?'
Corporate jollies are generally speaking the kiss of death to an audience.
As soon as you have two small children, they take up a lot of time and energy.
As so many people seem to have done, I kind of fell in love with Willy Brandt.
It's glorious to get all your food shopping without having to set foot in Tesco.
Never go dead for a second on stage. Even if you are doing nothing, do it actively.
I don't think there are roles that would attract me to do a long run in the theatre.
When you are doing pantomime, you're not immersing yourself in anything terribly deep.
What I loved about Edinburgh was being able to walk to work through a beautiful place.
Shakespeare is the best writing ever. It's incredibly rich, dense, expressive language.
The main thing about the Globe is there's 700 people all standing right in front of you.
I've been choreographed in various musicals before. So I'm not completely two left feet.
The things that impress you when you're a child have an incredible influence on your life.
What I don't believe is that DVDs or HD broadcasts can be a substitute for the real thing.
What is nice about doing a long-running show is finding a language that gives it some depth.
The acting bug first bit when I went to see 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead' at the Old Vic.
For me, acting is like a pool you dive into. If you're lucky, you find what you need, then get out again.
Opera requires an enormous commitment. You must devote your whole life to producing that extraordinary sound.
I like to do a wide variety of things, and acting, particularly in the theatre, has given me that opportunity.
I began getting these terrible headaches and I thought 'Oh great, death.' But it was just tension and tiredness.
At school I was a disaster academically but being involved in drama helped me to find another pathway into things.
It's true you can end up as rich as Croesus but the thing I enjoy about acting is doing lots of different kinds of things.
Many years ago, I was found in compromising circumstances in a dressing room by a security man. The other person was hiding.
A lot of actors are relatively shy people, surprisingly, so acting is a way of not being shy - and being paid not to be shy.
Lots of people are astounded that I was in the first cast of 'Les Miserables.' Possibly because I look so incredibly youthful.
It's lovely going to Oxford, it's very difficult to film there as you're doing a period drama in a city which is very crowded.
It must be every critic's dream when you're at something utterly intolerable to actually get up and intervene and make it stop.
I suppose there's a particular kind of efficiency about coming from a theatre tradition. You don't make a fuss, and you're cheap.
I was in 'Babes in the Wood' at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow in the Eighties. I was the villain - the wicked Sheriff of Nottingham.
'The Judas Kiss' was really wonderful. I loved that it concentrated on just two events in Wilde's life, and Rupert Everett was top dollar.
I don't get mobbed in the street or bothered. Well, people do stop and say nice things. 'I like 'Endeavour,' or, 'I loved The Thick of It.'
I played Benedick in 'Much Ado About Nothing' nearly 30 years ago at the RSC, alongside Susan Fleetwood as Beatrice, and I loved every minute.
In the early 1970s, I took singing lessons with John Hargreaves, a leading singer with English National Opera, when I was home from university.
Watching your children growing up makes you aware of time passing. You think, 'Oh, God, look at them now! He won't be like this for much longer.'
Judi Dench told me to shut up once. I was probably going on and on about something, in the way that I do sometimes, so she was being a good friend.
That's the thing with acting. There are always loads of people who are more successful, richer, more famous and seemingly able to do anything they want.