We're all caught up in circumstances, and we're all good and evil. When you're really hungry, for instance, you'll do anything to survive. I think the most evil thing - well, maybe that's too strong - but certainly a very evil thing is judgment, the sin of ignorance.

I don't know why they gave me a knighthood - though it's very nice of them - but I only ever use the title in the U.S. The Americans insist on it and get offended if I don't.

You look closely enough, you'll find that everything has a weak spot where it can break, sooner or later.

I wouldn't use the word 'scared' for my role as Hitchcock, but it was my most insecure. Taking on such a formidable, giant personality such as Hitchcock; he was one of the great geniuses of world cinema. Sheer genius.

In the theatre, people talk. Talk, talk until the cows come home about journeys of discovery and about what Hazlitt thought of a line of Shakespeare. I can't stand it.

It's such a pleasant surprise when you come on set and you find someone in charge like Ken Branagh or James Ivory. You know that you're going to do a day's work and at the end of it, it's going to be good.

My weak spot is laziness. I have a lot of weak spots - cookies, croissants; my wife is always lecturing me about this, I tend to put it all down as habit or it's just acting.