So I just play the character, I play the lines.

Irish people are educated not only about artistry but local history.

Acting doesn't have to be threadbare misery all the time.

I would say the next imminent hot writers are often the writers from the decade before you were born.

To be honest I live among the English and have always found them to be very honest in their business dealings. They are noble, hard-working and anxious to do the right thing. But joy eludes them, they lack the joy that the Irish have.

A lot of Irish people perform. They perform in drawing rooms. They sing songs and they play piano.

Theater is dangerously open to repetition. It's exciting when you hit on a new way.

My mother taught me to read.

The word democracy has no meaning. Duty has gone. Only rights remain.

People who are good at film have a relationship with the camera.

Theater dates very quickly.

I think America becomes more disgruntled by going to the movies and having an endlessly good time at them.

There once was a demographic survey done to determine if money was connected to happiness and Ireland was the only place where this did not turn out to be true.

I certainly had no intention of playing a man.

I can hardly decide what plays I should be in.

Once you've done one style, you leave it for a while.

I would love to write the story of my upbringing in Ireland.

I just think that things should be allowed to run their course, and not turned into a Disney ride.

Every generation is obsessed with the decade before they were born.

So I just play the character, I play the lines.

I take the theater seriously in that I loathe it, I'm bored by it.

The energy released by it is enormous and it becomes quite addictive, the power between the audience and the actor.

I had a ball doing Harry Potter.

Also, an area that interests me - and it will probably take years to state what I mean - is the period of the rise of democracy, with Tom Paine, which is around the turn of the 18th century into the 19th.

The Americans are very clear, and obsessed with nouns.

This whole tribal loyalty seems to have gone.

One moment cannot be the most important.

Even when they have nothing, the Irish emit a kind of happiness, a joy.

I find it incredibly tedious, hate that it murders itself with its own conservative pomposity.

There is a great relief in experiencing the worst vicariously.

There was no professional theater in Cork, but still I did a lot of performing.

There's something about the Irish that is remarkable.

In this watering-place I acted an heroic character, badly studied; and being a novice on such a stage, I forgot my part before a pair of lovely blue eyes.

I do like to embed a fictional character firmly in an occupation.

But even with a character like Cary who is relatively outlandish, at the end of the movie he's in a place where I wouldn't have expected him to be - taking on the responsibility of a woman who is pregnant and who used to be his best friend's wife.

Always, your work is the same: You have to tell a story, you have to make a character. It doesn't matter if there are thousands of dollars, millions behind it, or if there is nothing.

Each of us is meant to have a character all our own, to be what no other can exactly be, and do what no other can exactly do.

I liked Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, and that is the kind of character that I would like to have played. That would have been more in tune with who I really was.

It's the difficulty we had with Mr. Bean, actually, when it went from TV to film. You certainly discover that you need to explain more about a character.

In a lot of ways, the make-up was the character.

The more we study the Indian's character the more we appreciate the marked distinction between the civilized being and the real savage.

So many people have said that to me, that what they really like about Alex is what she brings out in Marissa, and what this situation brings out in her, a hint of happiness and another side to her character.

I've been on the show for six years and I don't even know what her history is. I sort of make things up in my mind, but I think it's hard for an audience to follow and invest in a character when they don't have the details.

It is not true that drink changes a man's character. It may reveal it more clearly.

Because I killed a guy in real life, and because my character kills a guy onstage, they said I could never do anything this great again. I resented that.

Well, I go to the theater today, and its curtain - there is no curtain in this play; the lights go down and go up - and we start. And I live this character for two hours. There are only two of us in the play. And It's a complete experience.

I just kind of understood it, and I threw my love for others and love for life into the character, and was having a blast. I loved playing Dharma. I loved it!

I think if you play a character that is fearless, then it's boring. I think that's what was so incredible about Harrison Ford, is that he always seemed like he was never going to survive it, he's always scared, and yet he always does survive it somehow.

If you look to lead, invest at least 40% of your time managing yourself - your ethics, character, principles, purpose, motivation, and conduct. Invest at least 30% managing those with authority over you, and 15% managing your peers.