A lot of people have a fear of Shakespeare. Even actors do. People are like, "Oh, I won't go and see Shakespeare because the language is so hard," but it is. When you read it on the page, you go, "What?! What does that mean?!" If you go to a Shakespeare play and you've never been, you sit there and go, "I'm an idiot! I don't get it!"

I was on top of Keanu Reeves, he was on his back and I was on my trunk, and I was breathing down his neck for hours and hours. It was... very erotic.

I think often in film we limit our imaginations a little - well, quite a lot, actually things get quite formulaic.

I think I'm much less self confident today. I actually went through a quite painful period because of that thinking that I was completely hopeless. But I think that's something that we all go through at various times of our lives and it was quite a sustained thing with me.

Having agreed to play Elrond, I realized how much had to be worked out about this character: the idea of portraying someone who is immortal, for one thing; plus the fact he is noble, wise, powerful, good - and beautiful! I began to think that he was altogether impossible to play!

Never send a human to do a machine's job.

If a film isn't really talking about who we are and what our psychologies are, then we're probably not that interested in it, actually.