Screen work always boils down to that moment between the camera and the actor or the actors. It always boils down to that, ultimately. You serve the camera.

The big stars I felt a kinship with were never the romantic leads. It wasn't Steve McQueen or Robert Redford - it was people like Walter Matthau and Anthony Quinn. My big hero was Tommy Cooper.

I've been acting for 25 years, living out of suitcases on theater tours or film locations.

You're suspended sixty feet up in the air, you've been up there for three hours, and all the shot requires is that you have to sort of react to getting punched in the head.

I love playing villains.

I've always been terrified about being bored. I always think being bored is the worst thing. The only strategic decision I ever made as an actor was to try and make each job as different as possible.

There are many actors who have inspired me: Spencer Tracy for his incredible elegance and, of course, Cary Grant. But, there's also an Italian actor I admire a great deal: Alberto Sordi.

I've worked with actors who treat the first two takes like rehearsals. And that's okay. If the camera is on you and we're doing a scene where I'm off camera, I'm treating that as a rehearsal.

Music is an essential part of my life and I'm completely lost without a good album to listen to or my iPod in my pocket!

My wife and I use a lot of garlic and rosemary with roast lamb. It has to be New Zealand lamb. The domestic variety is too gamy, in my experience.

I love working fast. I don't relish the director who wants to do 25 to 30 takes, or the actors who insist on doing 25 or 30 takes.

Peace and rest at length have comeAll the day's long toil is past, And each heart is whispering, 'Home, Home at last.

He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.

[In] every revolution, there is a great divergence between what the revolutionaries expect and what the revolution actually accomplishes.

Around the time I dropped out of college, I decided to start taking what I liked about short stories and apply it to writing songs - to make these things that would change and keep going.

All lovely things will have an ending, all lovely things will fade and die; and youth, that's now so bravely spending, Will beg a penny by and by.

Some of the most devastating things that happen to you will teach you the most

The question we should be asking. Would I want to be sponsored by me?

Never, under any conditions allow circumstances to determine your reality.

The furthest possible thing from the truth is that I hate or dislike women.

The Compleat Angler is acknowledged to be one of the world's books. Only the trouble is that the world doesn't read its books, it borrows a detective story instead.