When I was about 5 I think, I desperately wanted to be a pirate and have the hat and everything.

It's not everyday you get to do a pirate movie, you might as well go for it.

I don't have a problem with my body. I'm not just going to strip off all my clothing, but if the part calls for it and I don't think there's any way round, I'm absolutely fine.

It's all about perfection, isn't it?

When I was about 5 I think, I desperately wanted to be a pirate and have the hat and everything.

I think every girl is looking for her Mr. Darcy.

I'm doing a film now with a lot of guys as well, so at the end of that I will be growing a beard.

I tried college for three months but I was desperately unhappy. I just wanted to perform. I was getting straight As but I had no friends and cried every day.

All through my life what I've loved doing is watching movies. I love the escapism of film, I love stories. So it is incredible to be able to be in them as much as I am, to see them from the first stitch in a costume to the end product.

And we're fortunate if we have parents who are great and loving and inspiring. But, unfortunately, there are people who don't have that.

At this particular time, I probably am more comfortable with myself. Just now I'm having a lovely time.

But acting is very much a profession that is you're hot one moment and not the next - and that is totally cool. I think that's what I find most fascinating and most exciting about it - is that it can be gone in a puff of smoke.

I don't think I can call myself an actress yet. I just don't think my skill level is that high. I hope that with every job it gets better. But until I'm good, I can say I'm trying to be an actor, but I don't think I've completely made it.

I don't think that you can fake warmth. You can fake lust, jealousy, anger; those are all quite easy. But actual, genuine warmth? I don't think you can fake it.

I find more interesting roles for women in period pieces. I do personally like watching period films; I think you can really get lost in the fantasy of them.

I really believe that in this industry women have to be very true to themselves about what they're comfortable with.

I started working when I was seven, and ever since then I've been saving for an apartment. Even before that I had a little jam jar designated for my apartment money.

If only I wasn't an atheist, I could get away with anything. You'd just ask for forgiveness and then you'd be forgiven. It sounds much better than having to live with guilt.

It's fantastic to have the opportunity to work abroad, and do all that, but there is a certain point where you're just like, 'Oh, I'd love to work at home.'

It's good to know that other people think differently, and that's what makes the characters interesting.

It's impossible. You try to have any kind of relationship with your family, with a man, or with a friend, and you have to be on the phone and the Internet the entire time.

My mum says that I was born 45, and I do remember at six thinking that I should be earning my own living.

My upbringing is why I am the person I am today. I have very wise parents.

Nice is the worst word.

Well, the thing about great fictional characters from literature, and the reason that they're constantly turned into characters in movies, is that they completely speak to what makes people human.

What's nice about playing somebody real is that generally there's more information about them, so a lot of the questions that you'd otherwise have to make up the answers to are already there.

You already feel unsure of yourself, and then you see your worst fears in print. It really knocked me - which is why, I think, I was working, working, working, because I was trying to run away from the fact that I thought I couldn't do it.

Its fantastic to have the opportunity to work abroad and do all that but there is a certain point where youre just like Oh Id love to work at home.

Lipstick is for when you've had a shit day and you need red lipstick to face the world.

Very early on, when I started doing these plays and live shows, I would travel from city to city, and there were a million shows out there... so I wanted to step out among it, and I started putting my name above the title.

The box office has become global. I think that factors in to the question of how to portray different ethnicities and cultures.

Any story hits you harder if the person delivering it doesn't sound like some news robot but in fact sounds like a real person having the reactions a real person would.

But every time the workers come out in the only way they know to protest against conditions which are unbearable the strong hand of the law is allowed to press down heavily upon us.

I always want to be telling stories in whatever fashion I can, and directing is really just understanding and learning a different element of that storytelling process.

You have this impression from England that New Yorkers can be quite aggressive, but certainly the people that I've bumped into and the friends I've made here don't seem that way. Just walking down the street and asking for directions, people seem to be very helpful and happy to help.

There are men who would quickly love each other if once they were speak to each other; for when they spoke they would discover that their souls had only separated by phantoms and delusions.

In Georgia where children work day and night in the cotton mills they have just passed a bill to protect song birds. What about the little children from whom all song is gone?

I could give you a long list of things I like about Britain, but essentially what it comes down to is that I feel about Britain the same way I feel about my wife. I'm crazy about my wife - we just kind of suit each other. I wouldn't say that she's the most fantastic human being that's ever lived, but she is for me.

The journalistic code of ethics governing the broadcasts requires that opposing views be presented, and that journalists' personal opinions or judgments be left out of factual reporting.

I live on my own, happily, and I've never wanted children, but it did occur to me one day that there's part of me in 'Torak' - he's a loner, I'm a loner - as there's part of me in 'Renn,' who's quite waspish. I think, in some senses, 'Torak' is the son I never had.

Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half may reach you.

It's like the code of living by yourself. People who are single know what I'm talking about. You eat standing up, reading the paper. Or you say to yourself, this isn't even cutting it, I'm taking a TV dinner and I'm getting in bed here.

To be meek, patient, tactful, modest, honorable, brave, is not to be either manly or womanly; it is to be humane.

In fact I enjoyed every minute of my life at King's, especially the discovery of French and German literature.

Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not.

You say that I have a bad attitude. Guess what My attitude is a result of your actions. Change your actions and I will change my attitude.

There is so much hurt in this game of searching for a mate, of testing, trying. And you realize suddenly that you forgot it was a game, and turn away in tears.

I refuse to dance. And I can't dance anyway. I'm not in a band for that.

One of the terrific aspects of MIT in those days was the enormous variety of experimental work that either took place there or was talked about in seminars by outside speakers aggressively recruited by the faculty.