I did start reading quite young but I was always read to by my parents, who are both actors. Bedtime stories from when I was about two/three to when I was about 15. In fact they didn't stop until I eventually kind of kicked them out of my bedroom.

Most good art is left wing. It's a moot point whether there is any good right-wing art.

Stamps from Afghanistan are hilarious. You can tell when the revolutions are because suddenly they stop having pictures of the mullahs and the independence monument and they start having fish on them.

I am a coward, basically, but one of the things about acting is that you are always putting yourself through yet another test.

[P]erfect freedom consists in obeying the dictates of right reason, and submitting to natural law. When a man goes beyond or contrary to the law of nature and reason, he . . . introduces confusion and disorder into society . . . [thus] where licentiousness begins, liberty ends.

My one remaining professional ambition is to read the shipping forecast. I live in hope.

When you are in a bad production there are two things you can do. You can do your best or you can leave. I chose to do the third thing which was sulk.