Acting is an imaginative leap, really. And imaginations prosper in different circumstances. And it's being able - I can't tell you how one does, but one tries to read those circumstances correctly.

I got used to [ Lars Von Trier] doing the narration for 'Dogville' and 'Manderley.' And I said to him I do these narrations for you but you never put me in a film! So he called my bluff and put me in 'Melancholia' and I was thrilled about that.

My springboard is always the script. Even if the script is taken from a novel, I often haven't read the novel...

I'm not interested in awards. I never have been. I don't think they are important. Don't get me wrong, if somebody gives me a prize, I thank them as gratefully as I know how, because it's very nice to be given a prize. But I don't think that awards ought to be sought. It encourages our business to be competitive in absolutely the wrong way. We're not sportsmen; we're not trying to come in first.

Lotte Lenya was all emotion. She wasn't anything but emotion. She was not an intellectual.

I wanted to work with those boys (producers Andy and Larry Wachowski) because they're so eccentric and peculiar. Larry, of course, is halfway towards being a woman now. It's a crazy world.

If I hadn't been a part of [Harry Potter] I would have been deeply upset.