My parents certainly didn't have anything to do with the theater. I'm some kind of accident.

Who I am gets in the way of people looking innocently at the parts I play.

I have just returned from the dubbing studio where I spoke into a microphone as Severus Snape for absolutely the last time.

I'm a lot less serious than people think, it's probably because the way my face is put together.

Older people say, 'Oh I loved you in 'Sense and Sensibility,'' and that's the only film they want to talk about. Equally, there are people who only want to talk about 'Galaxy Quest.' And there's a whole bunch of teenagers who only want to talk about 'Dogma.'

I think every English actor is nervous of a Newcastle accent.

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