Sometimes it is easier to play someone who is far away from you.

In terms of jumping into a character's skin, I try to immerse myself in the role as much as possible to bring me closer to them. All I do is what's required to achieve what I want to achieve.

Method acting is a label I don't really understand, because there's a method to everybody's acting.

Fairfax was incredibly important to the shaping of the country.

I just love jumping into someone else's life. It is a relatively cheap way to experience things you would be too scared to contemplate in your own life.

People go to see a film because it's a great story and it's visually exciting to watch.

Sometimes you just can't walk away from films you're offered, like the Dylan Thomas thing.

Being a salesman and an actor were not that dissimilar: It is a good lesson in covering up your feelings. No one wants to buy from someone who looks depressed.

I'm doing a Dylan Thomas film, Map of Love, with Mick Jagger producing again. It's a wonderful script.

I don't like acting things; I like feeling things.

I got involved in script development from the beginning. It was nice to see how a film gets made right from the beginning. It was quite hands-on for me.

You're making a movie, not a documentary. If you made a film like the historians would like you to make, you're not going to go and see it. I'd rather see paint dry.

It's difficult to get films made, especially films about poets.

Sometimes people say to you that you should try to be in a bigger film, but it's the way it pans out.

I am an actor through and through.

You should be careful what you wish for, as the reasons for war get confused. One person can be very clear in their motives, but others can have different agendas.

Sometimes it is easier to play someone who is far away from you.

What was the reason for invading Iraq' Was it a humanitarian crusade or an economic one' I would be inclined to say the latter. It was the same with the Civil War, because the landed gentry's money was being stolen by the king.

The point is to be involved in the moment.

My focus never wavered; I never accepted the film was not going to be finished.

It quite often happens that they attach a name to a project and it doesn't get all the financing it needs.

The success of the film is down to the crew.

When you do bigger films, the financiers take more risks.

With the situation now, people might be intrigued to see how a country coped with war all those years ago.

I try and do films I know I'm going to enjoy watching as well as being in.

You'd have to have one hell of an imagination to completely make up a story, but historians are very anal about what they think should be portrayed on screen. Thankfully they don't make movies; we do.

You couldn't take football away from me, you couldn't take acting away from me.

You grow up a lot in terms of your understanding of the industry and how to deal with the corporate things.

When I'm playing a character like Jonathan in Ripley's Game I want to be in the moment when he's feeling pain; this very ordinary person who finds himself in extraordinary circumstances.

It's nice to be asked to do good projects.

I tend to do golf charity things because it's much safer and you don't get much chance of a broken arm or leg.

We should have a State in which we could live and breathe as free men and which we could develop according to our own lights and culture and where principles of Islamic social justice could find free play.

So, first you have to be able to play with a metronome. Then you take your freedom. If you play in an orchestra, you got to watch the conductor, he is like a metronome, but it is more difficult because he can change rhythms.

Never play anything that don't sound right. You might not make any money, but at least you won't get hostile with yourself.

A play is much easier to maintain your personal life with because if you're rehearsing, you're working like from 11 to 6 or 11 to 5 and you get to have your whole morning and your whole evening. When you're doing the play, you have all day.

I'd like to one day play Amanda, the mother, in The Glass Menagerie.

I couldn't be happier about being a part of 'Hunger Games' and to play Katniss. I have a huge responsibility to the fans of this incredible book and I don't take it lightly. I will give everything I have to these movies and to this role to make it worthy of Suzanne Collins' masterpiece.

For years the Trio did nothing but play for musicians and other hip people. We practically starved to death.

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

Genius is not a possession of the limited few, but exists in some degree in everyone. Where there is natural growth, a full and free play of faculties, genius will manifest itself.

I mean when the play was on in New York I was starting to get film offers coming through, and since the film's come out I get offered more than I used to, but it happens incrementally.

If Davis Cup was a little bit less or once every two years, I would be more inclined to play. But the way it is now, it is too much tennis for me.

I remember him watching me through the crack of a door singing with a hairbrush. I was in front of his mirror. I think he wanted me to sing. He would get me on the table and make me sing sometimes or play the piano. He was very encouraging on that front.

If you watch a game, it's fun. If you play it, it's recreation. If you work at it, it's golf.

You have to like the characters you play.

Good directors say, Here's where the play is. They stand by the heart of the matter. Some of them stand beside it.

The value of music is to be able to play one note at the right time in the right way.

So our ears got used to listening to jazz in the place that it was that the bass player could not play. No one really realized it and really addressed it until the bass players who could play their instrument came along and started doing something with it.

Well, I play Jews and parrots. Parrots are how I've branched out.