Every film I've ever worked on, and that includes 'Braveheart' and 'Trainspotting,' I've always witnessed a director having a breakdown. Every director will have a day, without exception, where they just can't do it anymore, they don't know what to say to their cameraman, their cast. It's the sign of real, physical exhaustion.

It takes a very strong brain to resist the absolutes, the myths that the media and the politicians peddle - the idea that if you are too kind, where does it all end? That not to help someone is somehow a good idea.

A lot of actors aren't particularly good directors. And they're not particularly good with other actors. That's kind of a fallacy.

I find the world more absurd now than I did when I was a kid.

The fact in acting, you can tap into your darkest moments in life to your lightest moments. And people will watch it, and appreciate it, and even engage with you because of that. That's the greatest job one Earth.

Just in relation to women, it's not that huge an imaginative leap to see the connection between the Taliban and the Catholic Church.

Life is much weirder than fiction; nothing's more absurd.