You don't need the painful memories, because either you've resolved them. Denying always makes them want to come back. Denial is a mechanism that doesn't work. But allowing them to come back in little by little, those memories, you can begin to be quite comfortable with them, and it's even nice to have that as part of the map of your life.

Training is fabulous because it gives you a basis, a strong structure, so that when you're unbelievably nervous and you think that you can't get a word out, you will get the word out.

There are moments when things just break apart and not really for very valid reasons, either. But they just change your life and make you go in different directions.

A film based on a jolly good John Grisham book is fine, but I like to get a bit under the skin

I got the O.B.E because I represent England outside of England more...but thinking of me as an actor, I haven't done all the classical theatre, all the great roles. Think of Helen Mirren and me. Helen, who I adore, is a friend - should be Dame. I am the rebel, the revolutionary on the side.

I can be seen as not being very communicative, or rather mysterious, or distant, or rather cold - all those things. Yeah, I know I can give off that impression. So I am that, too.

You give, actually, what you have in your inner world through your emotion and feeling. That's what you can give; it's not so much about "acting" in a sense of playing something that's very different to you.