A superb tenor voice, like a silver trumpet muffled in silk.

Often as a child you see someone with a learning disability or Down’s Syndrome and my mum and dad were always very quick to explain exactly what was going on and to be in their...

When people are old enough to know better they are old enough to do worse.

Well, I needed the work – that’s the honest answer. I haven’t worked for a while, a couple of years. So I thought it would be nice to get back to work and earn some...

John Carpenter created the idea of Halloween, so his vision remains the most focused and intelligently directed of the series. The directors that have followed have kept the original intent of the concept.

I was not naturally intellectual, but somebody whose interest had to be whetted, still the case sadly.

And people do enjoy the plays at completely different levels. And, likewise, they enjoy the authorship question… at completely different levels.

If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can’t be done.

Lord of the Rings was just so much enjoyment. It was over about the space of a year that I was filming. It’s one of the most enjoyable things I’ve ever done, so emotional.

I got a tiny part in a play, auditioned for another one and got that as well. Not only that, the first finished on the Saturday and the other started on the Monday which is...

I don’t think you necessarily identify and believe in the motifs of the character, but you have to want to play it and want to commit to the lines.

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.

Ultimately, Halloween II was a little too violent for my tastes. It didn’t have the intelligent quality and bloodless suspense of the original.

A committee should consist of three men, two of whom are absent.

Americans enjoy uniformity in a way that the British don’t; they wanted everybody of a sort of nice chorus line height and here I was, this person who was a good three inches taller than...

Moments are incredible, but in my fantasy mind I see a Globe company which is renowned throughout the world for what it does with pure storytelling. So that people come and say: it’s not just...

Children are the only form of immortality that we can be sure of.

I know I work quite hard at making people like me.

I used my instincts. It’s very easy to imagine how you’d feel, actually. I just had to tell the narrative.

Spurs haven’t got the funds they need so success has to be achieved gradually.

I’m not the best audience for that because I’m not a great science-fiction fan. I just never got off on space ships and space costumes, things like that.

I had a feeling George Lucas would go on to do some wonderful things. Technically he knew everything about the business at a very young age.

Because I’m now successful, what I’m being offered as an actor is more and more of the same.

I mean comedy is something that’s very personal and people have strong opinions about.

If he was lost for a moment, he would dive straight back into its honey.

A diplomat these days is nothing but a head-waiter who’s allowed to sit down occasionally.

Who is more foolish? The fool or the fool that follows it?

On The Others, very atmospheric and probably mysterious is how I would say it felt to be on the set. It felt just a little uneasy, the atmosphere that we were trying to capture.

Misquotations are the only quotations that are never misquoted.

When I directed, it was in a bubble, a creative bubble and I was very spoilt there. I’d like to do it again but it would have to be under my method.

John Carpenter liked my work, and he needed some kind of name for the picture. The script was good, and I immediately liked John, so I did it.

I was the youngest. The yule lamb. The one who always got away without doing the washing up. My sister was four years older, and my brother six years.

Burleigh, absolutely; and a lot about Elizabeth. I mean I found when I play Henry V a lot of connections with the hidden history of the connection between Francis Bacon and Elizabeth.

At the age of four with paper hats and wooden swords we’re all Generals. Only some of us never grow out of it.

I think that you always have something left, that you take something of the character with you.

I had bags of energy as a kid.

I’m not the kind of actor who goes into exhaustive research for each role.

It was actually the thing that I’ve put my heart into the most, in terms of research and everything, because I was a great admirer of Rimbaud’s work.

What can I tell you about things like Circus of Horrors except that I get killed by the bear?

Paris Hilton, that’s very interesting what she did. I’ve never done that. I haven’t really sort of ever got into that. As time passes, maybe I should record it and put it in a vault...

I can’t tell you too much about it because I’m not even meant to tell you that I’m in it. In fact, I might never work again now that I’ve been talking to you. I’m...

Our job is to make manifest the story, to be it. In a sense, the theatre is such a big star itself, bigger than any Shakespearean actor I could hire, that we should take the...

Monica Seles: I’d hate to be next door to her on her wedding night.

I was always insecure about the way I looked.

I want to direct but I think I’d be bloody awful and I don’t want to produce but I think I’d be a very good producer because if I believed in something I’d be able...

But Rangers don’t need to go there and win, they need to go there and get a point. I think the hardest thing about it is there will be no supporters. Playing in an empty...

If one could have a wish, or an alternative life, I would’ve liked to have been John Lennon.

I have no problem taking their money and dancing their dance. I’m doing that on this film, right now. They just haven’t realized it yet.

Godspell was a good leap for me, it was a good shop window.

Doing that hunt scene was really quite demanding. I actually broke a rib during that scene. And then all the scenes after that became quite challenging, just breathing and laughing.