Parts win prizes, not actors.

Acting is mostly about listening. If you just focus in on what the other person is saying, acting takes care of itself to quite a large extent.

Nothing gives me as much pleasure as travelling. I love getting on trains and boats and planes.

In theater, you've got to be aware of your whole body because it involves stamina. It involves two-and-a-half hours and a sustained release of energy, maybe for six months.

I think there should be laughs in everything. Sometimes, it's a slammed door, a pie in the face or just a recognition of our frailties.

Certainly as actors, and maybe as directors, you've got to hang on to something childlike. You've got to know what play is. I haven't worked with Mike Leigh, but I know him very well and there's something open in his eyes about what's in front of him. And the same is true of Alfonso in a Mexican, mad way. There's an enthusiastic response to something. Neil Jordan, the same, when he gets excited . You just want to know there's a human being in there.

We're dead as a species if we don't tell stories, because then we don't know who we are.