On film you put all your energies into a single glance.

I do feel more myself in America. I can regress there, and they have roller-coaster parks.

You know, London is so sprawling, and you can sometimes forget that anybody else is on a stage anywhere else.

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.

Mellow doesn't describe me. I'm hungry every day.

I have a photograph at home of Fred Astaire from the knees down with his feet crossed. It's kind of inspiring because it reminds me his feet were bleeding at the end of rehearsals. Yet when you watch him, all you see is freedom. It's a reminder of what the job is about in general, not just being in musicals.

Why don't I like you?" "Because you think I'm an asshole, and I'm not really, I'm just British and, well, you're not.