Robert Carlyle Quotes

I think I have a natural, if I can say that, got a kind of natural ability in comedy.

My dad was rubbish at all other aspects of his financial life, but he's pretty good at paying the rent.

I feel like I'm the luckiest man on the planet.

A lot of the characters I play have problems, they are marginalised, they have serious psychological problems, problems with relationships, with childhood. These are big subjects, big subjects. You can't balk at work like that. As an actor, that's as good as it gets.

There's a kind of unwritten rule: Don't say anything at all, and everything will be fine. It's a producer's medium. The directors aren't there to make any decisions. They're not going to change anything.

I have a reputation for being an improvisational actor, which is true, but I also know what I'm doing so that if the improvisational strand doesn't work I can go back to what I know's already there.

For me, it's a voyage of self-discovery. I'm able to go on a set and to explore situations, personalities, people and characters that are close to me, or maybe not. Through going there and experiencing these different people and their situations, it helps me to get oriented and develop as a human being. So, acting is fundamental to who I am.

I've always believed that as an actor anything you're asked to do is within you. You just have to try and find it.

In troubled times the last thing you want to do is to stick your money into a film. It's such a gamble.

It's much more fun to be ugly.

Every actor I think has got their own number of takes that they like, you know. Some actors like to go all day, you know on the one scene and some actors want to take two takes. I personally like four.

My first love is art, and I see a lot of things in an artistic way.

I played a maniac fan who murders a policeman and she did my makeup. I thought anyone interested in me looking like that must have genuinely liked me.

I never rehearse. Never! I think it's a waste of time.

I'm in four different films this year, and I have four different accents. I sound different in every film. You have to love a character to play it well, and change in my work is what I want.

In the late '70s, maybe just before I started, there was still an attitude that if you did film you didn't do TV and vice versa, but that's gone now.

I've really enjoyed my work in television, but the problem for me is the turnover of directors every week.

People in Scotland appreciate homegrown talent, but it's getting harder and harder to get films made in Britain.

Biologically, I'm lucky - an angular face and dark colouring which shows up well on camera.

Vancouver's a very child friendly city, there's... no doubt about that.

At times of the severest depression, humor is what binds people together.

I was 16 when I was in a band, for about 10 minutes. I went off and did acting after that. So it was a wee moment for me when I sang.

My wife was a make-up artist, and she's a total product junkie. Our bathroom is packed full of lotions and potions so I end up trying them out.

I don't take a great deal of interest in party politics. Social politics interests me a great deal more.

Acting is probably the greatest therapy in the world. You can get a lot stuff out of you on the set so you don't have to take it home with you at night. It's the stuff between the lines, the empty space between those lines which is interesting.

I never go anywhere without my iPod.

The thing I miss the most about Scotland is the football.

I used to be a rabid reader, but now it's scripts or nothing - network television is quite relentless, and you can't drop the ball.

I don't want to be a luvvie actor. It took a long time for me to accept I was an actor, a professional actor, and that, actually, I make a living out of this.

The more people know about an actor the less convincing they become. A bit of mystery's a good thing.

I'd love to do a Columbo-type detective character in a series.

A lot of Scots have settled in Canada over the years and it's a very easy place for Scots - they understand us, we understand them.

I often have scripts sent to me with allegedly Scottish characters where I end up telling them, 'You're going to have to rethink this whole thing!

Early days, I was a bit racked , particularly when I did Hitler, for CBS . That was hellish. That stayed with me for quite a long time.

Anyone that knows me knows what I'm about, and I'm very much a British actor, a European actor.

I rant and rave about noise pollution.

I like to be working and moving - the worst thing you can do to me is stick me in a room all day while you're lighting a shot. That just kills me.

Acting is a really insular thing.

I love sci-fi because it leads in the imagination, and I always say it has the most intelligent fans in the world.

My understanding of zombie movies is people rising from the dead, from their graves, stuff like that, and walking very slowly.

I've always taken my love of children from my father. He was a children magnet. Suddenly, having my first child hit home what my dad went through.

So many of my friends, old friends I haven't seen in years, made their way out there and got lost, then found their way back. That seems believable to me.

Guys, particularly in the West, go to the gym and train for hours and hours to pick up something that is heavier than them. Why would you want to do that?

I'd totally be attracted to a geek girl!

Acting, the arts in general, is a magnet for the wounded of society.

I do tend to divide my childhood into darkness and light, and the first seven years were certainly the darkness.

The script will point you in certain directions and I go the opposite if I can. I try do do one thing and tell a different story with my eyes. I believe what's more interesting is always what's not being said.

When I look back at my past and the way I grew up, I grew up on communes. That was meant to be.