There were no spells at my school, just a smack in the mouth.

Every part I play is just a variant of my own personality. No real character actor, of course, just me.

There were no spells at my school, just a smack in the mouth.

I learn the lines that JK Rowling or whoever writes them, and say them.

You get used to being lazy doing films, but classical theatre's going to finish me off.

There's no subtext in Harry Potter really; it's all magic, anything can happen. Why do I say this? Because it's a magic spell. It's quite nice in a way. There is a real freedom to it.

I just play him as myself, I don't ease myself into any role really. I stick a beard on and play me.

I am a theatre actor, but the last ten years I've taken parts in movies because it keeps me in money.

I promise myself that I would go and do a play every year.

Richard was in heavy, heavy costume, he could hardly sit, you know, and I turned up and they put me in two layers of silk, so I played him much lighter - you know, floating around in a pair of slippers, a bit of a hippy.

Television has dried up for my generation, so it's plays and films.

A child did approach me in a restaurant in Cornwall, but he thought I was Gandalf.

I belong to quite a lot of learned societies. We collect firearms and discuss them at dinners and clubs and things.

I just hate the idea of being well known. I know that is almost impossible if you're an actor who has done okay, but I've always fought against it.

I live in fear of being a contented passenger. I'd rather get parts I can't play.

I'm an anorak. I've always been an obsessive collector of things. Richard Briers collects stamps. I collect cars and guns, which are much more expensive, and much more difficult to store.

I'm very flower-like. I love classical music. I go to ballet and I cry. There's nothing so beautiful.

I've always tried to be an actor who... I just plod on and try to keep my mouth shut, mind my own business. I find the whole thing about people's lives... I can't understand it. I'm always astonished that people want to know anything about me.

I've played quite a lot of crooks and killers, and that's quite interesting. Then Dumbledore is the complete opposite, isn't he? He's a nice old man.

Maybe that is why kids like Dumbledore: because he is funny rather than a miserable old sod with a long white beard.

My only memories of school are of being beaten, of being hit in the playground, of masters poking their fingers in my chest all day.

Oh yeah, I'd love to be a comedian. I've done a lot, but always in the confines of plays.

Paul Schofield said something like, 'If I'm not acting in a play, I don't really exist.' Those weren't the exact words, but he meant it's only when I'm acting in a play that I've got something to say about the world. And then why should I talk, when people can come to see it?

Television has dried up for my generation, so it's plays and films. You get used to being lazy doing films, but classical theatre's going to finish me off.

There are more important ways of earning a living, aren't there? Like being a neurosurgeon. But some plays are very important, aren't they?

There's no subtext in 'Harry Potter,' really; it's all magic - anything can happen. Why do I say this? Because it's a magic spell. It's quite nice in a way. There is a real freedom to it. Doesn't say much for acting, does it?

When I was doing 'Tales from Hollywood' at the National, I was invited to dinner by the choreographer, Kenneth MacMillan. He told me I had the heart of a dancer and asked me if I'd like to come on at the end of 'Romeo and Juliet' as a friar. I said I'd love to, but sadly, MacMillan died shortly after.

Yeah, I like causing trouble. It's the teddy boy in me. I used to be a teddy boy. Feeling slightly inferior and wanting to cause a bit of bother and get some action going on in the room rather than get bored stiff.

I didn't have a boyfriend until I was 17. There were boys at school that I would find out later had a crush on me but I was too shy to talk to them.

I'm thinking of going to programming school. Learn how to sit down at any computer and learn to do anything on it. That's all I have left and have interest in.

I went to elementary school in Ottawa, and then to a private secondary school.

People react to fear, not love; they don't teach that in Sunday School, but it's true.

For example, UNICEF works with governments to change legislation such as in India where a law was passed raising the age of compulsory school completion to keep children in school and away from the workplace for longer.

In 1975 I decided that there was no future in flying (airline jobs were impossible to get, and who wants a job where you are judged only by seniority?) and headed off to grad school.

Education is a private matter between the person and the world of knowledge and experience, and has little to do with school or college.

My grandmother was a teacher, my sister was a teacher, my daughter was a teacher and is now a superintendent in northern California, and my son-in-law is a high school principal. I am surrounded.

A drunkard would not give money to sober people. He said they would only eat it, and buy clothes and send their children to school with it.

A good dancer is an educated one, so don't abandon school.

In high school and college all my friends and my brother wrestled.

I was an elementary school teacher.

I would not be gotten into a schoolhouse until I was eight years old. Nor did I accomplish much after I started. I doubt if I had gone to school six months in all when my father died. I was fourteen at the time.

And I began to tell little anecdotes that had happened to me, and people would laugh. And I began to like that, you know. But I knew that, 'cause I'd do that in school, but I wouldn't do it out there in front of all them people.

I was dyslexic, I had no understanding of schoolwork whatsoever. I certainly would have failed IQ tests. And it was one of the reasons I left school when I was 15 years old. And if I - if I'm not interested in something, I don't grasp it.

I don't make my own schedule - it's constructed around my sons' school schedules.

Right out of high school I never had the fear of getting beat, which is how most people lose.

The Professional Children's School, it's for professional kids, so if you wanted to ditch, you could just write, Audition on a note and leave. I didn't really like school all that much.

I was a hyper kid in school and the teacher suggested to my mom she needed to do something with me.

I was actually going to law school in 1972.

You can not do what you want to do unless you know the correct technique. The only other way you can learn how to do it is by doing it yourself, which would take twice as long than if you went to school.