"I'm going to show you I haven't given you permission because clearly you're not grown up enough to understand that, not having given you permission, you can't just come look in my house." And I won't know if they're coming and looking or not... so I put a piece of tape over it.

I have been known for almost 30 years to sort of do whatever comes my way. It's always been touch-and-go after each job finishes. I just like to be working.

You have this certain about of responsibility to play a fictitious character and you have a script that's guiding you and the other information of the custom department's choices, and the set department, "Where are you," and all those other pieces of information but you have to cull from your imagination the answer to all the unasked questions. And with a real person, there's someone to get that information from, perhaps.

An actor has to be very, very careful, as one of the most wonderful props - and actors love props - is a cigarette. There's so much to do with it: you can bring it up to your face, play with the smoke. It's just the greatest - ever since I was 16 and in acting school in England, I've been playing around with cigarettes.

I am a smoker, I'm ashamed to say. I had given it up for many years, then picked it up again. It's a horrible habit. I struggle with myself all the time. And I love to smoke.

I'm a little bit of a glutton for punishment, especially when it comes to work. I don't mind a bit of suffering. I think it's in suffering that we realize our best selves.

I'm very old-school. I like a director to direct me. I like to be the actor. I'm not particularly fond of the hybrid writer-director, or actor-director. Writers, directors, actors are all such very different people. I think it's unusual that two of those people are in one human.