In The Godfather, for instance, they say they won't deal drugs because they have a code of behaviour. He is the last remnants of that. So playing someone like that, who is also in pain with his kidney stone, means you're beginning to find a dimension of the guy who is king and all show and the private guy who is in pain.

I think I've grown up in an era where character acting on film has become less desirable for the producers and directors and therefore the audience. They have got used to the people that those actors really are.

When I was 16, I made some little 35mm documentaries about the poor in London. I went round Notting Hill, which was a real slum in the 1950s, shooting film.

Although I'm a very emotional man, I just can't have blind faith, I have to find out for myself.

Deep inside, I am desperate to do comedy.

Inevitably, every part an actor plays contains some of himself.

My fun as an actor and my task as an actor is to transform myself to become other people. I enjoy becoming characters but I don't enjoy becoming caricatures. The research I do is only necessary in so far as we move into other dimensions.