I love working with Lars [von Trier]! I've worked with him three times. I did the narration of Dogville and Manderlay.

I've never known what I've wanted to do. I've never planned anything in my life.

I loved working with [ Lars Von Trier], but I've done two films before, so I was quite used to him.He's a man of incredible moods of course, but he's also a hugely perceptive man, and there's no getting away from that. And he's able to put that perception into something like film, so we're very lucky.

I was keen on sports-that's how my nose got this way. It's not actually broken; the nose was just pushed up a little bit and moved over. It's an aquiline nose, quite Irish.

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.

In anything really, it's finding the reality. You can't be 'real,' but you can create a reality. And that created reality is what the audience believes in. And that's essential. Because if the audience doesn't believe that, they're never going to trust you. And if they don't trust you, you can't lead them up the mountain.

The great joke is that a realist is an optimistic pessimist. That's very witty. Whether it's truthful or not, that I don't know.