I have had lots of friends who've been affected by Aids and a very good friend of mine, Oscar Moore, died of Aids and I was with him in his last year quite a bit. And of course he was a man living in a very rich culture with a wealthy family who was able to afford health care.

I think we're creating a situation that's incredibly dangerous. There's a lot of chat at the moment about the war on terror and whilst there are many causes for acts of terrorism, what kind of society are you creating if you allow civil society in Africa to die and create millions upon millions of orphans? Where are they going to go? What kind of cults, what kind of militias, what's going to happen? The accession of violence in those countries, the possibility of that, to me is very terrifying.

Its unfortunate and I really wish I wouldn't have to say this, but I really like human beings who have suffered. They're kinder.

If you can't fail then how can you possible develop as a communicator or as a creator of anything? We are locked into a deeply unhealthy notion that somehow you've got to succeed all the time. An appalling notion. Any painter or writer will tell you that that is no way to proceed. One of the things that will kill off a decent actor, especially a young actor early on and they will never recover from it, is too much success. It's disastrous. You stop being criticized, therefore you stop challenging yourself. You then can't afford to fail because there's too far to fall.

I`ve realized that in all the great stories, even if there`s a happily-ever-after ending, there`s something sad.

Well, I met Sandy Bullock at an awards thing a couple years ago, and she said to me, “If I were gay, you’d be the one.” I said, “I’m there!”

It's such a cold night and it's the only time I've actively been grateful for menopause. I've been entirely comfortable.