The society Shakespeare knew was heading for tremendous change, and he seems to have recognized that and written about it in a coded way. I understand those codes, I think

Theater and poetry were what helped people stay alive and want to go on living.

I give myself to my parts as to a lover.

A conservative frame of mind is very limiting for an actor, and a human being, too.

Shakespeare lets us see real people undergoing real processes, with real feelings

A deeper truth the camera can see can be more surprising than even the director imagined it could be. That's a wonderful thing that grows and happens in films.

On one occasion, Daniel Day-Lewis, Jeremy Irons and myself were due to appear at the Sarajevo film festival and were turned off a UN plane on orders from Geneva. We had to get local journalists to transport the films in for us. I tell you this only to demonstrate that festivals can be a lifeline. But, after all the difficulties I'd had in getting there, in 1996 I found myself being flown in on a four-seater RAF plane as an official guest, endorsed by the British Embassy. Ironically, the film I was to present was Mission: Impossible.