I think nobody since has written such extraordinary work as Shakespeare writes. The characters he writes are full of inconsistencies, which is a great human quality - I mean we're all very inconsistent in the way we behave.

I've always believed that the great strength of the Internet is that it allows us to communicate with each other, it allows debate. And I think that gay marriage is a huge step forward. But debate is throwing ideas about, and when it becomes sort of a weapon of character assassination, I think that's crazy. I think the situation in America is different from in England, where we have civil partnership, and now the vote on gay marriage has been carried, and whether it will go through Parliament I don't know.

I've never been passionate about acting, and I find more and more that I work to live the life I want to live. [...] There's something about the detachment I have, the feeling of the lack of importance about what I do, that is healthy.

To be an actor you need various things. You need to have a head for choosing the roles. You have to be, hopefully, easy to work with so people enjoy working with you. You have to deal with missing roles, with not being asked to work, with doing good work and then being castigated by the critics for it. You have to have a skin that can deal with all of that. I, fortunately, seem to have the makeup which allows me to deal with the business. I mean, not as everybody.

Sadly, one's parameters are constantly narrowed by one's success.

It's just money; it's made up. Pieces of paper with pictures on it so we don't have to kill each other just to get something to eat.

We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they're called memories. Some take us forward, they're called dreams.