I think an actor is very like a sportsman. You have periods where you're in terrific form. Everything you touch seems to work, and come right. And other times, when you're working really hard, it's okay, but it isn't scintillating.

I'm very director oriented.

I'm besotted by [Kirsten Dunst] now. I think she's just wonderful. I can't think for a second that however much she'd worked in America, she would never have had the chance to play [a role in Lars Von Trier's 'Melancholia' ] like that. You have to get outside of the States to do something like that.

You can see areas where maybe you got a bit lazy, perhaps, or you see when you were really on form. I think an actor is very like a sportsman in that respect. You have periods where you're in terrific form.

I never quite understand why we watch the news. There doesn't really seem much point watching somebody tell you what the news is when you could quite easily listen to it on the radio...

As Beckett said, it's not enough to die, one has to be forgotten as well.

Very, very broadly speaking, you can put directors into two areas: One for whom you work, and the other with whom you work. And I prefer the latter, for obvious reasons. It's a great relief to feel that you're working with someone rather than for someone. You don't feel that you're being tested, as it were.