Every part I play is just a variant of my own personality. No real character actor, of course, just me.

I've always tried to be an actor who... I just plod on and try to keep my mouth shut, mind my own business. I find the whole thing about people's lives... I can't understand it. I'm always astonished that people want to know anything about me.

I'm very flower-like. I love classical music. I go to ballet and I cry. There's nothing so beautiful.

For an actor to remain a child is rather important. It's a childlike, dreamy thing, acting, if you think about it. It's the sort of thing children fantasise about, playing cowboys and Indians in the street. I think that acting is just a highly refined development of that.

I learn the lines that JK Rowling or whoever writes them, and say them.

I am a theatre actor, but the last ten years I've taken parts in movies because it keeps me in money.

Paul Schofield said something like, 'If I'm not acting in a play, I don't really exist.' Those weren't the exact words, but he meant it's only when I'm acting in a play that I've got something to say about the world. And then why should I talk, when people can come to see it?