his approach to filmmakers and serving his stories.

The Midwest isn’t somewhere you mix with those from the performing arts. But my mum and dad would go off to Chicago every so often to see shows. They would bring back the albums and the movies, those little eight metres, and we would all watch. I think that was when I fell in love...

some actors seek parts similar to their personalities. But, I prefer undergoing a metamorphosis that depends on the role.

I’m an optimist. I hope if a movie’s good that it will be a success, but as we know, that’s not always true, just because of popular taste, advertising, distribution patterns – there’s lots of reasons.

My dad was a surgeon, my mom a nurse, and they were always out working. I had five sisters and a brother. They didn’t care what I got up to.

The best thing an actor can be is ready. Be flexible, be ready.

I think on some level, you do your best things when you’re a little off-balance, a little scared. You’ve got to work from mystery, from wonder, from not knowing.

In order to inhabit a character, you’ve got to embrace and empathise with them.

I’m no different to anyone else; I want people to like me. I just don’t particularly want them to understand me.

I think back story can help guide your choices, but when you’re playing a scene, you’re not making choices; you’re just intuitive.

I knew very little about ‘Spider-Man’. I grew up more in the ‘Superman’ generation. ‘Spider-Man’ – I didn’t know so much. But it is a really successful franchise, and I’m happy to be involved with it.

Turn off the sound in a movie, and if you can tell what’s going on, the movie should work.

I love theaters. I love the event of going there and seeing a movie with a lot of people. I like the community coming around the story.

When you work on anything, you want to find the range of impulses – which ones get portrayed is another question, but you want to have that complexity and that fullness, even if you’re playing a cartoon character.

I don’t have a preference between theatre and film; I like to do both. But I will say that there’s something about theatre that is more nourishing and sustaining than film ever can be.

I think, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve been able to be more reckless with my choices, because practically speaking, you get less careful. Your choices become more instinctive, and you feel like if you make a mistake, it won’t destroy you.

Let’s hope I never end up on a deserted island, because I could never make a decision on which three CDs to take with me.

It makes me laugh when I hear a guy talking about being in touch with his feminine side. But I gravitate towards women; I identify with them. And I do cry very easily, more and more as I get older.

That’s a frustration sometimes, that certain directors that I’d like to work with, they just aren’t doing stories that I’m sort of castable in. Not always, but sometimes I have that frustration.

I’m not attracted to naturalism, I’m not attracted to behavior, I’m attracted to dance. I’m attracted to gesture, I’m attracted to singing with your voice, as opposed to having a natural manner. I’m a theater actor first, so that probably influences a lot of my approach. And I think in many ways, naturalism has ruined...

It’s true in the beginning I started playing villains, and I think that’s pretty clear, because if you don’t conventionally look a certain way and you’ve got a certain kind of presence when you’re young, then what’s available to you is character roles, and the best character roles when you’re young tend to be villains.

When I was a kid I was very interested in the idea of the will, finding out what you’re capable of. I liked those kind of challenges.

It’s really a story that makes as much fun of the body politic as any particular politicians. It makes fun of how we got to this place where there’s a lot of politics in entertainment and a lot of entertainment in politics.

We’re making up a story that has certain resonance, and that resonance does pertain to what’s going on in the world. Any time a film does that, I think it’s worth doing.

One of the pleasures of going to the movies for me is quite simply to see new ways, to think about broader ways or to challenge something as a given. It’s usually people from outside, from the margins, that have the voice that inspires me.

All the time, as an actor, you want to be asking what’s next and where things are going. If you’re not asking those questions, you’re not growing.

I do want to be in mainstream movies that are going to be seen. I suppose it satisfies the showbiz side of me.

Action breeds inspiration more than inspiration breeds action.

The worst thing is to get involved with people who aren’t passionate about what they’re doing.

Sometimes I say I feel more like a dancer than an actor, because there are things implied about being an actor that I don’t really like. I feel more comfortable with the word ‘performer’. I like being the thing. I like being the doer. There’s a factualness to it. And then certain resonances happen out...

A lot of critics are lazy. They don’t want to look closely and analyze something for what it is. They take a quick first impression and then rush to compare it to something they’ve seen before.

I don’t think people want to see me as a regular guy; besides, I’m a regular guy in real life. I guess I just want to be reckless in my work.

The bad things about theatre get balanced by the good things in film and vice versa. So to tell you the truth, I love it when I can go back and forth – it feeds different parts of you and exercises different muscles.

I’ll never be able to really see a film that I’m in.

Celebrity is okay as long as you know it’s not about you.

I am confident only when I am constantly in motion. Between projects, the doubt creeps in.

I’ve been a prisoner and lived in prison for a while; I’ve been a missionary in China; I’ve been a vampire and a priest in Poland in World War II. I guess without bragging or being too prideful about it I’m excited when I look back at these things that I’ve done. I’ve had lots...

The English Patient’ is about the coming together of a French-Canadian nurse, an English patient, a Sikh in a turban and me, Caravaggio, and each of us is seeking a resolution to our own problems.

Plenty of bad movies are very successful, and plenty of good movies are not. And distribution is so crazy, some films won’t even get their day in court.

I was born William. My father was William. I came from a big family, I hated being called Billy. Willem’s a nickname; it’s a Dutch name, very common in the Netherlands.

I’m one of those people who when I go over a bridge, I want to jump. It’s just this intense tickle in the back of my throat. It’s like I’m on the verge the whole time I’m walking over that bridge, and I’m not going to get a release until I jump.

Sometimes I think women are lucky because they can develop in ways men can’t. The old-boy network may be oppressive to women, but it actually stunts men in terms of personal growth.

I guess they often cast me as the bad guy, because I’m not, er, conventional looking. I look sort of violent. I’m the odd one out, the outsider.

The mask can be a limitation, but you just deal with it. You do get superhuman strength and pumpkin bombs and all this other stuff to express yourself with.’

You have to lose yourself to find yourself.

One of the pleasures of being an actor is quite simply taking a walk in someone else’s shoes. And when I look at the roles I’ve played, I’m kind of amazed at all the wonderful adventures I’ve had and the different things I’ve learned.

I love doing action and stuff; the problem is usually action movies are not that interesting. Also as I get older I feel like there’s less opportunities for me.

You can be intuitive when you’ve got a more expansive role. You can get into the poetry of telling the story rather than just pushing buttons.

In my experience, sometimes a movie just hits at the wrong time, gets the wrong press, or gets the wrong representation, and it gets misunderstood.

I’m a task-oriented actor. A pretender. And I try to invent my process anew each time I make a new project. So I frown on any method.