I think I'm a bit gruffer than I used to be, and I'm certainly older.

It is so painful watching yourself act, particularly because you can't do anything about it, it's all done and dusted.

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.

In the theatre, the actor is in total control. The director wasn't in the house last night, the designer wasn't there, the author's dead. It's just us and the audience.

For old actors, just remember that inside you're only 14. Acting is for kids. You poor old grown-ups, you've forgotten how to do what kids know automatically.

My acting stopped being about disguise and became about truth which suits the camera, so my film career took off when I came out.

[There's] nothing special about an actor's imagination, except that he uses it a lot.