Not to oversimplify it, somebody once said a good rule of thumb in interpreting a character is to find the good in the bad people that you portray and the bad in the good.

I thought to myself, there's a man who gave up his life to serve others - to touch people in that way is probably the greatest thing you can do as a human being.

I think there's a bit of the devil in everybody. There's a bit of a priest in everybody, too, but I enjoyed playing the devil more. He was more fun.

This notion that Americans have. . . that they don't have to do anything other than be American in order to lead - that's very pervasive in the culture, it goes very deep into how they see themselves here.

I attended the bedside of a friend who was dying in a Dublin hospital. She lived her last hours in a public ward with a television blaring out a football match, all but drowning our final conversation.

Unfortunately, I experienced some sexual abuse. It was a known and admitted fact of life amongst us that there was this particular man, and you didn't want to be left in the dressing room with him. It took many years to come to terms with it and to forgive those incidents that I felt had deeply hurt me.

A completely disrespectful photographer was asked to stop taking photographs, and then said, 'I've got what I want. What are you going to do about it?' How would you feel if somebody walked up and started taking your photograph? I don't think you'd be very happy.