I don't think Hamlet is mad, nor is he predisposed to be a gloomy or tragic figure.

Don’t stand up when you can sit down and don’t sit down when you can lie down.

If you've been to Moscow, it's a really exciting and great city, but it still feels like you should be a little careful about which way you're going to step.

The ferocity of passion that is engendered by people when they don't like what you've done is really tremendous. It's intense.

Frankenstein feels like an ancient tale, the kind of traditional story that appears in many other forms. It appeals to something very primal, but it's also about profound things, the very nature of life and death and birth - about, essentially, a man who is resisting the most irresistible fact of all, that we will be shuffling off this mortal coil.

I feel more Irish than English. I feel freer than British, more visceral, with a love of language. Shot through with fire in some way. That's why I resist being appropriated as the current repository of Shakespeare on the planet. That would mean I'm part of the English cultural elite, and I am utterly ill-fitted to be.

It's quite hard for people to just accept that they're very contradictory.