Most of the time when you do a job, a play or a film, you're wondering, "Will there be an audience?"

There's no sex in Middle Earth.

My reaction to 3D is subtly. Things don't come out at you, but rather you - The audience come into the film.

Personally, coming out was one of the most important things I've ever done, lifting from my shoulders the millstone of lies that I hadn't even realized I was carrying.

I think if I were asked to do as many as fifty takes, I would assume the director had no idea what he wanted, and was just hoping, eventually, to see it.

I've played an awful lot of people that other people would call villains, but that isn't a very helpful attitude to have if you're about to play them. They are just people, and they may do dreadful things and say dreadful things, but your job as an actor is to know why they do them or say them.

I tend to discourage people from calling me 'Sir Ian,' because I don't like being separated out from the rest of the population. Of course, it can be useful if you're writing an official letter, like trying to get a visa or something passed through Parliament. They're impressed by these things.