I've been working every year since I started acting, and I got many awards before I won the Oscar for 'The Queen.'

I am for peace and all kinds of ways because the total reality is that you never quite, at least in my experience, you never quite get to be peaceful in the profession that we have all chosen. It's a constant yearning, a constant reaching out for the unreachable. And so you never quite find peace within yourself. You are always questioning yourself and challenging yourself and feeling that you would fall short.

Words can be used for venal purposes. Words are incredible sources of propaganda and can cause terrible havoc.

Flesh sells. People don't want to see pictures of churches. They want to see naked bodies.

I don't believe that if you do good, good things will happen. Everything is completely accidental and random. Sometimes bad things happen to very good people and sometimes good things happen to bad people. But at least if you try to do good things, then you're spending your time doing something worthwhile.

The role of women has always been undervalued in the spy world, always undermined in terms of recognition. Unfairly so. It's a world that needs women.

Actors are rogues and vagabonds. Or they ought to be.