I've only used my own voice about four times on film.

There's a statistical theory that if you gave a million monkeys typewriters and set them to work, they'd eventually come up with the complete works of Shakespeare. Thanks to the Internet, we now know this isn't true.

I was relatively technically adept. I can edit and wire up a light.

I'm still working, I've got two arms, two legs, two gorgeous kids, a lovely wife. Fifteen years ago, I was homeless. So when you think about it, I'm lucky.

My philosophy was, if I just do good work, someone will like it enough to employ me. It never made me famous. And I'm way, way too old now, mate. That boat's sailed.

I hate auditions - when I'm doing them, I can't wait to get out the bleeding door.

Most good roles are written for young men. We are fixated on youth. So however much people say there is nothing wrong with being bald, the reality is once the hair is gone, you might not get the parts.

I need something to do when I'm not working, or I crawl up the walls. So I've just taken up kung fu. I was looking for some kind of calming, relaxing activity. I tried yoga, but it wasn't really me.

When you get to 15 and most of your teachers are priests, there's bound to be a conflict.

I've only used my own voice about four times on film.

It's not any desire on my part to start playing dads, but it's a convention of drama. If you don't get the parts of young people going out to nightclubs, you have to play their fathers.

We tend to think about fascism in terms of the Second World War.

Everyone should be good at what they do.

I don't know how to construct a career that'll make me famous. Except maybe get my ears pinned back, get my teeth done, and go to America. But then I'll be competing with billions of actors who haven't got false teeth, and who are 25.

You learn more doing than doing training.

Not being able to work would make me very unhappy.

I'm not usually attracted to big-budget American films.

I'm belligerent rather than ambitious.

I just wanna build momentum again. Keeping yourself in work is one thing, keeping yourself in good work's another. But if it doesn't work out, so be it. As the Taoists say, Learn to accept that which you cannot change.

Even before my audition, there were several pages missing from my script because those bits were so unbelievably secret not even I was allowed to see them.

That's what I like about Neil Jordan's films: everyone is better at what they do than you are.

I just want to be rich and famous.

Well, put it like this, if you're not a kid, you're a wizard.

My best film composing experience was with Elia Kazan.

I was lucky enough to occasionally break out of that racist situation that prevails in the Hollywood film production community. But it was racist then and it will always be that way. It will never be otherwise.

'Batman' took 10 months to film, and by the time I stopped working on it, it took a long time before my English accent came out again. I was actually having to try for it.

Luck is everything... My good luck in life was to be a really frightened person. I'm fortunate to be a coward, to have a low threshold of fear, because a hero couldn't make a good suspense film.

I still feel that a movie has to attempt to say something - even if it fails miserably. But I've sort of given up on believing that I'm going to change the world with every film I choose to act in.

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.

To make a documentary is one thing, to make a feature film is quite another.

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.

I think it would be very boring dramatically to have a film where everybody was a lawyer or doctor and had no faults. To me, the most important thing is to be truthful.

I like doing them and they're ridiculous and the actors can improvise a lot, and they don't have to be really realistic characters that hit a very specific tone as in a feature film. They're really fun, I want to make more of them definitely.

One of the most interesting aspects of the film project was collaborating with so many people - directors, filmmakers, and writers - over a five-year period. I learned that there are two components to this.

The best thing I can think of would be to create a union between something as beautiful and powerful and wonderful as Hollywood films and a criticism of the status quo. That's my dream, to make such a German film.

If he didn't fall in love he would have never come back near the end of the film. Because, what man is going to dishonor himself so that he comes back in front of the man that took a woman away from him... and warns her to save her life?

Robert Altman's Nashville is my all-time favorite film because it covers all the bases - it's original, moving, and has something to say, but also funny and incredibly entertaining.

I never see a novel as a film while I'm writing it. Mostly because novels and films are so different, and I'm such an internal novelist.

I have a movie coming out called Spun, which will be at the Toronto Film Fest.

Well ironically my last three roles have all been a mother. One was a Canadian film where the baby was taken away because she is a drug addict, in Irish Jam I play a mother to a four year old. I think in the future I'll be able to handle the role with a lot more depth.

And when you see it the first time you put the film together, the roughest cut, is when you want to go home and open up your veins and get in a warm tub and just go away. And then it gradually, maybe, works its way back, somewhere toward that spot you were at before.

A good film script should be able to do completely without dialogue.

My advice to young film-makers is this: don't follow trends, start them!

The whole aspect of cinema and film festivals should be a moment to come together and celebrate art and humanity. It would be a shame if there was such a divide.

It's really rare for film directors to be that interested in things other than themselves.

When I said I was going to audition for a film, I got a hearty laugh from all my family.

I don't think any actor feels comfortable watching themselves in movies. You must be very narcissistic. The problem with your own opinion of yourself is that contrary to the normal spectators, when you watch a film you are in, you only watch yourself.

We're making a commercial Hindi film catering to all types of audiences.

They all matter to me, whether I'm working on a Sam Jackson film for a week or I'm the star of my own TV series - I take it all very seriously, and I have a healthy respect for the work in general, despite the role.