I'm fascinated by the business of belief, obviously, because it's so ever present with humanity anyway. And, you know, when you have science, which constantly talks of proofs, you have religion, which constantly talks of beliefs and faith and so on.
Picasso was hugely innovative, and, wow, did he have facility, amazing ability, but I don't think he painted a masterpiece.
I'd love to claim that what I have done in my life is of my doing, but it's not of my doing at all. I've blown around in the wind like a mad thing, influenced by this and that - like a piece of paper: like the boy in that scene in 'American Beauty' watching a piece of paper blowing hither and thither.
I think you can get better in mathematics on a school level, but when you're talking about being a mathematician, I think that's definitely a gift of genes or whatever, you know? Whatever your pool is.
I have died in so many spectacular ways, and I remember shooting them all, too. I imagine all those deaths will flash in front of me when I'm on my death bed, faced with the real thing.
I seem to watch less and less television. The best thing in 'Downton Abbey' is Penelope Wilton. She is always worth the watch.
I put everything I can into the mulberry of my mind and hope that it is going to ferment and make a decent wine. How that process happens, I'm sorry to tell you I can't describe.
Religious people know deep down that that is the most vulnerable area of their lives, and when others question it, they are liable to hit out and feel insulted. You know it is absolutely without proof, yet people still commit themselves totally to this belief. They cannot refute it because it is so central to their lives.
Don't forget there are two sides to performing. Finding the truth, but you also have to be transparent enough for the audience to see it. How many times have you seen a performance and thought: 'Well, it seems to be meaning a great deal to you but it ain't coming across to me?' It is to be shared.
How my film career happened, I don't know. It was unplanned. I'd been in films and TV throughout the Sixties and early Seventies, but it was really 'The Naked Civil Servant' in 1975 that put me on the radar.
Half the stuff I have done which has been successful would never have been made if it had been shown to focus groups.
The difference between anger and deep remorse - remorse is much fatter. It's a deeper feeling altogether. Anger is too easy an escape for my money.
Nudes are the greatest to paint. Everything you can find in a landscape or a still life or anything else is there: darkness and light, character dimension, texture. I painted heads too, of course.
My mother's father drank and her mother was an unhappy, neurotic woman, and I think she has lived all her life afraid of anyone who drinks for fear something like that might happen to her.
I mark a script like an exam, and I try not to do anything under 50 per cent. Similarly with the part. And also film is a peculiar thing, parts don't necessarily read in script form anything like as well as they can do when it comes to materialising.
Everybody, I think, that was in 'Harry Potter' was certainly introduced to an enormous lot of young people.
Ultimately, the film industry has always pushed out its biggies, and I don't have a problem with that. I just wish that we'd spend more time nurturing the smaller ones.
If you do an interview in 1960, something it's bound to change by the year 2000. And if it doesn't, then there's something drastically wrong.
I like entertaining. I adore it. I feel I'm in the right place. Without question.
I've done some stinkers in the cinema. You can't regret it; there are always reasons for doing something, even if it's just the location.
