But to me I find Francis Bacon the most likely candidate to be the author.

Burleigh, absolutely; and a lot about Elizabeth. I mean I found when I play Henry V a lot of connections with the hidden history of the connection between Francis Bacon and Elizabeth.

So there's a lot of people tied into believing that the traditional response to the authorship question. In terms of actors, some people get very angry about it.

I think that was very important to Bacon... personally. I think he went to great efforts to get a house for the Stratford man, to make it so difficult for us to prove that it was Francis Bacon, because it is very difficult to prove.

You know, I don't think you need to be educated to be a great actor.

And people do enjoy the plays at completely different levels. And, likewise, they enjoy the authorship question... at completely different levels.

Well, my wife always says to me, and I think it's true, it's very difficult for us to understand the Elizabethan understanding and enjoyment and perception of form as it is to say... it would be for them to understand computers or going to the moon or something.

There have been more books alone written about Hamlet than have been written about the Bible.

Moments are incredible, but in my fantasy mind I see a Globe company which is renowned throughout the world for what it does with pure storytelling. So that people come and say: it's not just the building, it's the only place you can hear this kind of work.

But I find with Francis Bacon, some of the things were in the place, and someone who was connected with these schools of thought, and someone who had a motivation that equals the scope of the comedy and the tragedy in the plays.

It's an intuitive exercise to do a Shakespeare play and to go through a Shakespeare play.

But to me I find Francis Bacon the most likely candidate to be the author.

Great actors try to dismiss all ideas from their conscious mind in order to provide an experience that is real.

And it is a very beautiful idea, and possibly true, that a common man from Stratford with a common education was able to write these plays.

But I don't sit down at dinner and have clever ideas.

It's difficult for me to say, but I don't think the sex scenes are particularly erotic.

Our job is to make manifest the story, to be it. In a sense, the theatre is such a big star itself, bigger than any Shakespearean actor I could hire, that we should take the opportunity to fill it with voice and verse and movement, not interpretation.

I have always had the sea as my playground.

I played didgeridoo from a young age - on the vacuum cleaner, initially.

As human beings, of course, we're all compromised and complex and contradictory and if a screenplay can express those contradictions within a character and if there's room for me to express them, that's a part I'd love to play, so much more than a character who is heroic and one-dimensional.

If we are to have faith that mankind will survive and thrive on the face of the earth, we must believe that each succeeding generation will be wiser than its progenitors.

Love feels like this fog. It slinks in from some hidden place and silently overtakes me. It seems so dense but when I reach into it theres nothing of substance. Then before too long it simply vanishes. Thats my perception of love.

I love this country very much, and I'm proud to live here, but I think our current administration is extreme. These are not merely conservative people, these are extreme right-wing people.

I think how Chicago plays a role in my life - it had such a role in my youth and the decisions that I made as a kid and formulated who I am as an artist early on.

When I say to a parent, "read to a child", I don't want it to sound like medicine. I want it to sound like chocolate.

Occasionally, if I am very confident in the establishment, I'll risk an egg salad on Dutch crunch, but I must be very confident indeed.

Every year I try to grow as a player and not get stuck in a rut. I try to improve my game in every way possible. But that trait is not something I've worked on, it's part of me.

It's impossible, I think, however much I'd become disillusioned politically or evolve into a post-political person, I don't think I'd ever change my view that socialism is the best political moment humans have ever come up with.

Compromise means to go just a little bit below what you know is right. Its just a little bit but its the little foxes that spoil the vine.

I'm just an ordinary person who has an extraordinary job.

I spent the first 22 years of my life absorbing everything, like a big disgusting cell, and now I'm disgorging it with jokes added out into the world. That's a really gross metaphor.

We're not perfect, but we want to do the right thing.

I did some stage when I was a kid, around 16 or so. I was living in Melbourne and had a band. I was quite young. We weren't very good. Then I found a band in Perth. We played around for three years. We're in the 'History of Rock'N'Roll,' a book about Perth music.

Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity.

Whatever I do, I do it because I want to do it and because it's completely, 100% me.

Since day one my thing has always been to play the music.

And the best part about rock bottom is that you can only go up from there.

Economics exists to make astrology look respectable.

Family is always going to be there. The material things, they come and go.

When I got to college, as I was walking across campus one day, I ripped off a little flyer for this sketch-comedy group. It ended up being one of the greatest things I've ever done.

Guard your roving thoughts with a jealous care, for speech is but the dealer of thoughts, and every fool can plainly read in your words what is the hour of your thoughts.