It's taken me longer still to realize what a short span there is between those life experiences and the rest of your life. That's a job for the people who lived through it.

I never want to sort of put all the cards on the table all at once, because that's somehow there's always a journey to go on. There's always something to be revealed, in my mind, about characters.

I was born in 1961. Now I think the 16 years that elapsed between 1961 and the end of the wars is nothing. To a child growing up it felt like an eternity, an entirely different world.

Surely the job of fiction is to actually tell the truth. It's a paradox that's at the heart of any kind of storytelling.

I always want to do things that are different. I don't want to be doing the same thing, the same performance constantly, and it feels like most people tell you that they are the same. However different you feel might approach them.

I've never had a desire to be famous. Lots of actors are actually extremely shy. I have shy areas.

He has such a patronizing tone and manner, and such a sarcastic sense of humor. I found him rather brutal, a kind of elegant brutality which appealed. No, I think he came pretty much off the page.