Tom Hollander Quotes

I prefer to be flippant about acting, just in case I'm rubbish.

For me, faith is more about aspiration than complacency - the smug satisfaction that other people find distasteful.

Stories about vicars are always being told because they're at the heart of our society. Vicars touch all parts of the community and see life in all its extremity.

I'm on the verge of taking a stand.

Nothing else is as fulfilling as playing a part in which you are able to have a significant say in the creative process all the way through. How many actors get to do that? It's extremely rare.

I like to think of myself as versatile, and I certainly have the most varied career, so I'm very, very lucky in that.

Obviously I'd love to have kids and all that. Luckily, as a man, there's not such an egg timer on it, but I'd like to be able to pick them up without Nurofen first.

I did absolutely love playing Tabaqui, the hyena, who is morally conflicted and a villain, but also quite sweet.

I'm unhappy as Dylan Thomas was, because I'm not, but I've had my brushes with sadness.

Every now and then, I feel terribly uncomfortable with what I'm working on, and then I think maybe I am an artist. I'm not very articulate about it, but I do know that you have to follow your gut.

The danger with playing a part that defines you is that it swallows up everything else.

I've always wanted to do a real comedy. I haven't done enough, and it seems silly not to do more, considering the fact that people tend to laugh at me.

In the periods of my life when I've had least contact with the Church, I've always assumed a belief in God is a solid thing, but clearly it's a relationship; it has good days and bad days.

Somehow I find it easier to inhabit characters if they are a little bit pathetic. I do seem to have an affinity with pathetic people.

I meet people who are famous, and it's made me realise that fame has huge lifestyle disadvantages. I'm nervous about that. I don't want to become a celebrity.

My sister and I both benefited hugely from the great security that our parents had given us, and then we went off and squandered it all rushing around in showbiz.

I'm no Kenneth Branagh or Ben Stiller. I'm not that single-minded: 'I'm producing it, directing it, and starring in it' kind of person; that's not me.

If you're actually being paid to be miserable, and to be as miserable as you can be, that's a very fortunate thing, if you're prone to occasional lapses of spirit.

I do a TV show about a priest in London, and he is also slightly beleaguered and is subject to fate and misfortune and daily difficulty.

I'm not Welsh and I didn't know that much about Dylan Thomas , and I saw that he's a huge icon of Welsh-ness.

You're always supposed to have sympathy for the person you're playing. You should be the one person who does.

The improv technique does one of two things. It either makes you raise your game, or retreat into a corner and decide to find a new career. But you do feel like you want to match and develop things.

I actually don't subscribe to the notion that comedy is easier than drama. When you're trying to be funny and you're not funny, that's really terrible. It's a horrible feeling.

I don't think anyone could ever be wholly satisfied with their performance.

You're always a bit blind. If you look at stuff a few years later, you get a more objective look at it.

You always think, "Oh, I'm sure I could have done that better." But generally speaking, I am very proud of this.

I'm not as self-destructive as Dylan Thomas, but I've certainly been around that behavior enough to have found it a release. The thing that I really enjoyed was being able to play misery.