The most difficult thing about shooting guns instantly on film is to not pull a silly face while the gun is going off, because it's always a bit of a shock. So you find yourself sticking your tongue out or blinking or whatever. So the hardest thing is to keep a straight face while you're shooting a gun.

I'm terrified of learning lines, and I've always been terrified that I won't learn them.

Writers can get very angry when an actor says, "I don't know, I don't feel very comfortable with this line." Sometimes though, you're working with a writer for whom that is simply not apt - like Harold Pinter.

Film is a wonderful thing and it can be so many different things. I don't want to turn my back on any of the different ways movies can be. I love the movies. I love going to the films. I like very serious films, I love foreign films, and I love big, fun movies - as long as they're well made and they've got good scripts. That's the most important thing.

I am so happy that I didn't have children. Well, you know, because I've had freedom.

What I feel personally and what I can act are two different things. Maybe one of the great pleasures of my job is being able to inhabit worlds that you are never going to inhabit personally.

I think it's always hard for people to get their head around the fact that populist, commercial films can also actually be great works of art.