[Washington is a] very gossipy little village of people all going to the same bars . . . all watching each other having affairs with each other

What you want is a comfortable environment that you feel you can invent in. Because film is such a lumbering, technical, huge, great Neanderthal thing, it's hard to create that little space of peace, and calm, and creativity, and ease. That's what you want the director to create for you, so that when you walk on the set, you forget all of that, and the fact that it's costing gazillions of dollars a second.

Hollywood is a very small world; the people who matter matter, and the people who don't matter are just like nothing.

The important thing is to bring people with Parkinson's into our world and for the public to have a real understanding of it, as they've beginning to have with autism.

I think of myself as being a bit of a wimp deep down - a bourgeois wimp - and I'm fighting that. I think all Brits are, maybe.

The hardest period in life is one’s twenties. It’s a shame because you’re your most gorgeous, and you’re physically in peak condition. But it’s actually when you’re most insecure and full of self-doubt. When you don’t know what’s going to happen, it’s frightening.

I believe kids shouldn't be taught Shakespeare. They should experience it first by seeing a great production.