James Purefoy Quotes

When you're dealing with killing people and things that are upsetting, that can be a delicate place to occupy yourself for a day.

We start off wearing frilly shirts and britches and being good guys and the heroes. And then as time goes on, every English actor ends up playing bad guys. That's what we do.

I think the James Bond thing has sailed. But of course I would want to be a Bond villain. They are great parts. I think it's highly unlikely, but one can always dream.

Somebody doing something effortlessly is a lovely thing to watch.

Im not a big fan of patterns. I like the unexpected.

One of the great things about being an actor is that you have a completely different challenge every few months.

I often think that drama helps people feel less lonely about things.

Actors tend to get better with age. You start cutting away the useless stuff and achieving a point of effortlessness and simplicity, which is all you want to do, with any art at all.

I don't have much time for real violence at all. I think there are infinitely better ways of changing the world than using violence. Sitting round a table talking is a pretty good start.

I think the older I get, the less I should be doing.

Actors are their own worst enemies. They quite often will get in their own way, and I have to be encouraged, endlessly, not to get in my own way.

Ring tones are just irritating, aren't they?

What I went into the acting business for was to have a certain amount of chaos in my life. I don't know what I'm doing next. It's exciting. That's the way I like it.

I really do want to just be able to sit in the corner of the pub with my friends... to just be an actor and still go to the supermarket and not get bothered.

One of the things that I discovered in my research is that some serial killers build an ultimate reality around themselves that they believe in, 100%.

One of the things I like about doing historical films is drawing the line between now and then.

I like doing things that are very wildly different. I find that the meat and vegetables of being an actor is doing things that are completely different, all the time.

Acting gives me a chance to be people I will never be, in real life. I like changing who I am.

One of the reasons a lot of actors go into the business is that for a short period of time, you get to be other people who you can only fantasize about being, by and large.

Ancient Rome was a violent place.

If you're going to lead people, you better know how to manipulate people, and you have to be pretty smart to be able to do that.

I'd never read a piece of television where it's an hour script and it's perfect.

My life is really precious. I don't want to spend it watching ambient TV that just drifts through you. I've got better things to do.

I like television that grabs you by your throat.

It has taken a long time for me to be able to really just be in front of the camera.

One of the great things about drama is that it makes you feel like you're not a crackpot, and that there are other people who think and feel the way you do.

You need to be disciplined and you need to try to occupy a zone of acting that is always quite scary because you don't think you're doing anything.

Decide very early on: do you want to be an actor or do you want to be famous? Because they're very different routes.