No matter how much technique you draw on or how much training you have, acting is a mystery.

It's a funny thing - the reality is I have no feelings about school. It's long gone. Funnily enough, the bad memories - of which I don't have any left to be honest, I can just remember a sense of tedium - have faded. And teachers that I liked have remained quite vivid. There are three or four left.

Something like Shakespeare in Love, which became such an established hit that it now seems like a foregone conclusion... but it really wasn't. The script was around for a very, very long time and had people chickening out all the time.

In filming you're waiting. You're waiting for lights. You're waiting for people set things up. And when you're not waiting, you're repeating. And neither is conducive to spontaneity, you know. Comedy makes you very, very neurotic because you think, I - but did I nail it?

As much as the next person, I want to be approved of, but I'm not greedy for that stuff.

We've always been involved with America - I have a son who lives there and it's a big part of my life.

I think everyone is throwing happy stuff at you, and that's when you come over all humbug. It's happy stuff in your face, happy stuff is being sold to you.