I think 40 years ago, it would have been a little bit different because people had a tendency to think the actor was their part. I do find people who, all of a sudden, realize who is sitting in the restaurant and the first thing they react on is not necessarily, "There's that actor," but it's, "There's that killer guy."

When you do a TV show, there's always the fear that it will become tired and you'll know exactly what's going to happen.

I'm not the kind of actor who runs around and insists on being called Stravinsky by everybody, and my family has to call me Igor. I'm not that kind of actor. I think that's pretentious.

If you're playing the bad guy, you have to find what you like about them.

Machiavelli had some cold tricks for people who wanted to be demagogues and wanted to take over the world.

I take my work enormously seriously. When I do something, it has to feel right. Everything has to be right. I’m not ambitious about my career, but I am ambitious with each job. I can be fairly annoying to work with. No compromises, let’s put it this way. Compromises are from hell.

I’m an Adidas guy who walks around in sports gear all the time because there’s always a ball right next to me somewhere. I do a lot of sports but I do enjoy wearing a lot of suits. I have quite a few suits that I really enjoy wearing but, unlike Hannibal, I like wearing them only at special occasions.