Before every performance, I think I am about to keel over.

I hate that people think going to the theatre is a special occasion. I wish people would treat it as normally as going to the cinema.

I love silence.

Being a secretary was considered a very good job in those days.

I've made six films since I made Secrets and Lies but I still live in London and I'd love to do theater.

People say to me that I can't be nervous because I've had such a wealth of experience, but I tell them that I have never done this particular part before.

I've never done a big studio film, I've only ever done little ones.

I knew Secrets and Lies was a great film, but I didn't expect it to get the attention it did because none of his other films had and I thought they were just as good.

Maybe wanting to retire is my ambition.

Anything where people have to work together makes me cry.

I've done a lot of costume drama and theatre - the National Theatre and In fact, most of my work at the theatre, at the National Theatre anyway, was period.

Everyone the world over talks about British actors and British talent and I think that's because we were trained - until now - in theatre.

I always considered myself very successful even before the success of Secrets and Lies.

I think behind closed doors people behave differently no matter what period we're looking at, because people have to stand up straight in public but can slouch behind closed doors - can you imagine wearing those corsets?

I always think 12 times before saying anything.

It's a real leveller, you know, to do theatre at least once every two years.

In fact at home I sometimes like to be quiet and hear the sounds of the world outside.

When I left drama school, there were dozens of rep theatres you could apply to where you got a good training.

Before every performance, I think I am about to keel over.

It's the same as any role and I find that you can't lump characters together; because they all have different life experiences, different reasons for being the way they are.

I think people often confuse success with fame and stardom.

The strange thing is that since I've been offered lots of films I think that maybe they think that I've sold out to Hollywood. Which is not the case if anybody's listening.

Even if I hadn't have been nominated for an Oscar, to have won the Golden Glove was just fantastic.

The academy awards in England; it's a classy affair as well.

I like the enthusiasm but not the insincerity of Los Angeles.

If you give it good concentration, good energy, good heart and good performance, the song will play you.

Firms would be given initial entitlements to gross markup on the basis of past performance. These entitlements would be transferable and a market in them would be developed.

Humans are imperfect. That's one of the reasons that classical and jazz are in trouble. We're on the quest for the perfect performance and every note has to be right. Man, every note is not right in life.

And at the same time, you are of course a performer, but it's very important that you understand that your role as a performer is to get the best performance from those wonderful colleagues that you have the chance to work with.

To boast of a performance which I cannot beat is merely stupid vanity. And if I can beat it that means there is nothing special about it. What has passed is already finished with. What I find more interesting is what is still to come.

The next day I was in my school's production of All My Sons. This was the performance where I realized something was happening between me and the audience that I hadn't recognized before.

From protecting our natural resources to providing maritime security and national defense, the Coast Guard's duties are broad in scope, and the performance of those duties has never been more important.

To vote is like the payment of a debt, a duty never to be neglected, if its performance is possible.

I think my expectations for myself are much more severe and much more direct. You can't work on a film for six years without being your own toughest critic. So you can't really be distracted by the expectations based on your previous performance.

Unless an entire row of people got up in the middle of a performance and left the theater in disgust, I felt as though I hadn't done my job.

I'd also like to do a play. I've never done theater, and constantly changing and refining a performance is something I'd like to do, even though it may sound like work to some people - and it probably is work.

What comprises good performance? The ability through singing or playing to make the ear conscious of the true content and affect of a composition.

I always want to do things that are different. I don't want to be doing the same thing, the same performance constantly, and it feels like most people tell you that they are the same. However different you feel might approach them.

I've done scenes in films that I felt like the performance was better in certain takes, but they couldn't use them because it didn't match what the person was doing when they came around and the camera was on them.

I am always more interested in performance and character depiction, and my direction says as much.

Did you know I staged the first performance in America of At the Hawk's Well?

An arts education helps build academic skills and increase academic performance, while also providing alternative opportunities to reward the skills of children who learn differently.

What kind of morons do you have working at newspapers in Austin that would base an entire review of an artist's performance on whether or not they had a good seat?

What does my performance have to do with Russell Crowe's? Nothing. If I play Gladiator and we all play Gladiator with Ridley Scott in the same amount of time, maybe we have a chance to see who did it best.

A performance is only as good as the audience you are playing to. A lot of times you feed off of the audience, and we always try to give them all we've got and sometimes you don't get a lot back, but we've never been dead whenever we've performed.

Performance is your reality. Forget everything else.

The eating of burning brimstone is an entirely fake performance.

Offspring, the due performance on religious rites, faithful service, highest conjugal happiness and heavenly bliss for the ancestors and oneself, depend on one's wife alone.

Performance art can involve the audience with taste, smell and sounds not available with electronic media and not practical with conventional theater. This is due to the usually small audience.