In Britain, any degree of success is met with envy and resentment.

I haven't spent my entire career playing the guy in the bad hat, although I have to say that the bad guy is frequently much more interesting than the good guy.

I'm much softer than people think. I don't present to the world an emotional face. I'm pretty good at self-control, but I am easily moved.

I think acting is a mixture of instinct, imagination and inventiveness. All you can learn as an actor is basic technique.

I don't play long parts. They must be short parts, but they've got to be parts that mean something, that matter, where people will notice when I'm on the screen, and people will remember the character after they've seen the film.

Someone asked me yesterday if Dracula met Saruman and there was a fight, who would win. I just looked at this man. What an idiotic thing to say. I mean, really, it was half-witted.

We don't always get the kind of work we want, but we always have a choice of whether to do it with good grace or not.