Gollum is Gollum - though in 'Lord of the Rings' he's 600 years old and in 'The Hobbit' he's 540, so he looks a little bit more handsome.

Be magnificent. Life’s short. Get out there. You can do it. Everyone can do it. Everyone.

I play saxophone, I play tenor sax.

As long as you have the acting chops and the desire to get inside a character, you can play anything.

That's what I think is the biggest challenge, is just being still and learning how to just be present in that stillness and not over do it, not over act.

When you come out of the other end of a long process, working with a character [you realize] this character has really shaped my ideas.

I believe that when people experience an event as a community it can transcend and change people's lives.

Performance capture is a tool that young actors will need in the next 10, 20 years. It's on the increase, as you say. It's not going away.

Performance capture is a technology, not a genre; it's just another way of recording an actor's performance.

I expect at some point I'll probably want to go back on stage and do some theater, because I've not done theater in 10 years.

I love acting and certainly won't give it up, but it's part of a bigger canvas for me now.

I'm acting like someone who is starting to realize who he is and what he can do.

I'm hardly famous. I wouldn't want to trade places with anyone else.

I’ve known a lot of people go mad over the years, and it is more distressing than people dying. People dying is quite natural, people going mad is the complete antithesis of that.

I am the doctor of our family, and I am a big fan of homeopathy.

You do your own stunts as an actor, and you end up getting hurt. It's not your job. You've got stunt guys. Stunt guys make a lot of money.

Near a war is always not very near.

The philosophy of hedonism means little to lovers of pleasure. They have no inclination to read philosophy, or to write it.

I've just always been a bit of a dork.

I hope the example of Saddam Hussein will give a lesson to leaders of other countries where human rights are not respected.

Round the world and home again, that's the sailor's way!