As you get older, you suffer fools less easily. That's why there's all those cranky character actors. I'm an exception. I'm a sweetheart.

I was born William. My father was William. I came from a big family, I hated being called Billy. Willem's a nickname; it's a Dutch name, very common in the Netherlands.

The worst thing is to get involved with people who aren't passionate about what they're doing.

The English Patient' is about the coming together of a French-Canadian nurse, an English patient, a Sikh in a turban and me, Caravaggio, and each of us is seeking a resolution to our own problems.

Great theatre is about challenging how we think and encouraging us to fantasize about a world we aspire to.

I never act. I simply bring out the real animal that's in me.

Sometimes I think women are lucky because they can develop in ways men can't. The old-boy network may be oppressive to women, but it actually stunts men in terms of personal growth.

The mask can be a limitation, but you just deal with it. You do get superhuman strength and pumpkin bombs and all this other stuff to express yourself with.'

You have to lose yourself to find yourself.

Action breeds inspiration more than inspiration breeds action.

I guess they often cast me as the bad guy, because I'm not, er, conventional looking. I look sort of violent. I'm the odd one out, the outsider.

Human Nature is the only science of man and yet has been hitherto the most neglected.

If there's one thing I'm good at, it's gathering people together to do something fun.

I don't think ordinary things are very interesting, so I try to imagine a world that is less ordinary.

The only way to know how a complex system will behave-after you modify it-is to modify it and see how it behaves.

I understand the lifelong scars born by women who are victims of assault and abuse.

I think that there are many different ways of getting and staying sober. Like religion, I just don't think that one way is the only way.

Immigration, a lexicon. You're a 'migrant' when you're very poor; 'immigrant' when you're not so poor; and 'expat' when you're rich.

Do exactly the opposite of what the sheep are doing in order to become the Shepherd.

I'm pretty political when it comes to human rights and things like that.

Never was isle so little, never was sea so lone, But over the scud and the palm-trees an English flag was flown.