Roman Polanski actually said as much to me once. He had his head in his hands, and I said, "Roman, I've got to tell you, as an actor, seeing the director with his head in his hands... Look, I really want to do what you want me to do." And he went away and he came back, having obviously thought about what I said. And he said, "When my head is in my hands, I'm closing my eyes and trying to remember what I saw in my head, before any of the stuff."

The excruciating moments of drama are when people are allowed to show or say what they feel.

I am the worst judge of how a movie is going to do. I always have great and ambitious hopes, but none of them see the light of day.

I wanted to play a TV detective because it's a rite of passage; I wanted to experience every area of acting. I haven't done comedy or as much Shakespeare as I had intended.

Ewan McGregor is a very genial and entertaining man, and Pierce Brosnan is possibly the nicest man in the world. Actually, it was quite a genial set The Ghost Writer, but the weather and the colors and the actual surroundings were oppressive. But it was a created atmosphere. What was so striking is that Roman Polanski had his crew from The Pianist, and we were shooting in Berlin, so there were German and Polish and French people, and I was just sort of enjoying being in this mix of people, all kind of rubbing along together. That felt good.

I couldn't get any of the ingenue roles when younger because at 5 feet 9 inches with a deep voice I was always too... genue. My career has completely happened since I was 29.

Roman Polanski actually said as much to me once. He had his head in his hands, and I said, "Roman, I've got to tell you, as an actor, seeing the director with his head in his hands... Look, I really want to do what you want me to do." And he went away and he came back, having obviously thought about what I said. And he said, "When my head is in my hands, I'm closing my eyes and trying to remember what I saw in my head, before any of the stuff."