I'm not religious. I love what Clive James said the other day. James is a brilliant writer, but he keeps on writing poems on stuff. And he said, "God doesn't have a leg to stand on."

I never did anything about my stardom, it never meant anything to me.

I keep saying that backwards is all you can see. You can't see front. My wife says, "Stop, you're always in the past." She sees me sort of daydreaming.

This is something particular to actors, especially in plays, and in films, too - but in plays, it's like, don't get involved with anyone in the play.

The film business is absurd. Stars don't last very long. It's much more interesting to be a proper actor.

My emotional investment started when I read the first scene of the actual drama [45 Years]. I can't explain it, there's no logic to it, but the notion of one's youth that somehow comes back but is gone, a man of my age connecting to that timing of life.

My occupation has been a great deal with David Foster Wallace, and he didn't manage it, and he was very much looking for something that isn't totally selfish, and finding meaning. It's a struggle.