To be challenged means to strive. I'm almost certain that's true.

I've always been terrified about being bored. I always think being bored is the worst thing. The only strategic decision I ever made as an actor was to try and make each job as different as possible.

Every job is different. I don't think that I've ever had that wonderful feeling when you've finished a job or where you feel like you've mastered it or sort of nailed it... You can never be satisfied. If you're satisfied, it's time to retire.

I do remember being a fan of the Marvel characters and not liking the DC characters at all.

I'm not qualified to do anything else. So there better be another job. I'm kind of stuck now. I'm enjoying my life and I'm enjoying my work, and I'm enjoying the fact that the work I'm doing is garnering some interest and that's great. I just hope that it continues.

I love playing villains.

You're suspended sixty feet up in the air, you've been up there for three hours, and all the shot requires is that you have to sort of react to getting punched in the head.

I've been acting for 25 years, living out of suitcases on theater tours or film locations.

To be challenged means to strive. I'm almost certain that's true.

The worst thing that an actor can do is go into any project with a lack of respect for the material. You can have an opinion about it, but you have to respect yourself in doing it.

My father was a waiter basically, and when I got my first professional job as an actor, I left a job that he found me for half the amount of money. So anyone would think that they're stupid, that that would be a stupid move.

And I think it's because good cons are all based on the victim's need, and the successful con artist is the one, I guess, who can exploit that. I remember reading something about this, that one of the great traits of confidence tricksters is the level that they flatter their victim.

Character actors aren't a brand in the same way that high-profile leading men are.

Even at drama school if there was a part of some eastern European thug it would be me.

I love the theatre. It's a perfect life for an actor: you can do a couple of movies and then go and do a play, and then go back and do another movie. It's a nice way to live your life.

I love theater work because of the immediate effect your performance has on the audience. And I love the repetition; I love getting on the same stage for more than a month and reciting the same lines, trying to make a small or large step towards an improvement in my acting.

I love working fast. I don't relish the director who wants to do 25 to 30 takes, or the actors who insist on doing 25 or 30 takes.

I think it would be a problem if Hollywood was casting British actors only as villains; if that were the case, then certainly there would be cause for concern.

I've worked with actors who treat the first two takes like rehearsals. And that's okay. If the camera is on you and we're doing a scene where I'm off camera, I'm treating that as a rehearsal.

Music is an essential part of my life and I'm completely lost without a good album to listen to or my iPod in my pocket!

My wife and I use a lot of garlic and rosemary with roast lamb. It has to be New Zealand lamb. The domestic variety is too gamy, in my experience.

Screen work always boils down to that moment between the camera and the actor or the actors. It always boils down to that, ultimately. You serve the camera.

The big stars I felt a kinship with were never the romantic leads. It wasn't Steve McQueen or Robert Redford - it was people like Walter Matthau and Anthony Quinn. My big hero was Tommy Cooper.

There are many actors who have inspired me: Spencer Tracy for his incredible elegance and, of course, Cary Grant. But, there's also an Italian actor I admire a great deal: Alberto Sordi.

When I get home after being away for work, my wife always stuffs the fridge with loads of what she calls 'nibbles' - all the great things you can eat straight from the fridge, like chunks of cheese, slices of ham, bowls of hummus.

When I look back on my career - if that's what it is - it looks a bit like a crazy quilt, and I think it's just really because, when one job has finished, I've never really been in a position where I had three or four options.

When I was younger I was always big; I was a fat boy at school. I had an early growth spurt, and when I went to secondary school I was tall enough to be a policeman.

A good example of the modern world is the Eurotunnel. And mobile phones - I like them.

From the spiritual came the blues, gospel, and rhythm-and-blues. I heard all of that music growing up, and that has influenced how I approached classical music. I'm sure of it.

Any genuine teaching will result, if successful, in someone's knowing how to bring about a better condition of things than existed earlier.

My brother Cody is 19. He wants to stay out of the limelight and become a lawyer. I want him to be an entertainment lawyer, so he can help me out!

The elements which are the most widely diffused have small atomic weights.

My theory on genre is that while there are people out there who believe that genre tells people what to read, actually I believe that genre exists as a marketing tool to tell you what to avoid.

Like everything genuine, its inner life guarantees its truth. All works of art created by truthful minds without regard for the work's conventional exterior remain genuine for all times.

Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There's plenty of movement, but you never know if it's going to be forward, backwards, or sideways.

A whole new career opened up for me when I was in 'Lord Of The Rings' and 'Star Wars.'

It's really important to say this. Often the faith schools were founded before the state provided education. I want good education in this country so I'm not going to slag off faith schools. I think that it's important that people of different backgrounds and different faiths go to school together and many faith schools do that.

Each match I approach like a new one. The work is so immense that you don't have time to sit and ponder.

The least amount of judging we can do, the better off we are.

I am not a political writer. I agree with Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell, who are social writers. I can't write in that fashion. I am not good enough for that. What I am interested in is family dramas and why we are doing bad things to each other and what our motives are.

I think it was when I was 12 when I entered a singing competition. I sang my own original song for an audience of 1,000 people.

Honestly, I was such a tomboy as a kid. People were taking from their mothers' closets - I was taking from my dad's closet. It was the '80s, so it wasn't terrible, but I was wearing my dad's dress shirts over jeans from the Gap.

Architecture is an expression of values.

Wherever I am in the world, I never get Sunday night blues. I suppose it's because I've never worked at any one thing long enough to start hating it.

When I was playing before I retired, I never really understood the appreciation and the respect that people gave me. People had treated me like a god or something, and that was very embarrassing.

The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.

Opera is credible drama now, and it costs less than going to a football match. What have you got to lose?

If you do not know how to ask the right question you discover nothing.

When dark December glooms the day and takes our autumn joys away.