I feel so sorry for younger actors who aren't able to have the opportunities that I had, starting out in repertory theatre. It's really tough on young actors now.

Life is just more comfortable if you're honest and open about everything. I spent so many years being in the closet about one thing or another.

The effort of learning. It's the same when you approach any new skill or technique, from a dance step to driving a car. The effort of learning stops you, at first, from doing it well.

Most of my career has been spent with the RSC doing Shakespeare, and the thing you learn from Shakespeare is that his historical plays don't bear anything other than a basic resemblance to history.

What drew me to acting in the first place was disguise.

I can feel the power of the words doing the work. Must trust language more.

I have a Woody Allen Jewish attitude to life: that it's all going to be disastrous. That it hasn't all been that way is simply down to some random quirk of fate.

It's good for actors to confront those things we have to act: panic, pain and death.

I don't believe in an afterlife.

When I'm painting and drawing I only do people. Acting is obviously portraiture - and writing is as well.

The whole of my acting career is a bit of a mystery to me.

She'd survived Brandon. Just to die all over again. "Well, hell." He smiled wanly at her. "Indeed.

I love music. I listen to a lot of it.

Reading is not simply an intellectual pursuit but an emotional and spiritual one. It lights the candle in the hurricane lamp of self; that's why it survives

Marriage is an investment which pays dividends if you pay interest.

I want to be able to have a conversation with people. I don't want to be stupid. I'd like to have a life outside acting.

Jesus rose from the grave and you, you can't even get out of bed.

I can meet any producer in Hollywood and look them in the eye, knowing I didn't sleep with them, or do drugs with them.

As I've always said, McLaren exists to win, and win we will.

I think life is short, and you can't spend time doing things just to be on set to reassure yourself that people are not going to forget about you.

I can't work in Brooklyn. Unless I'm completely locked away in a studio, there's just too much distraction and stimulation.