I guess I'm just good at playing repressed individuals. I'm lucky because those are often the roles that catch people's eyes.

We are not telling Tudor history; we are creating ' Wolf Hall ' from novels, which are already a rereading of Tudor history.

For me the rehearsal period is the part I most enjoy. It's the creating of the story.

I've always had a 'Work hard, play hard' attitude to life - I still do - but sometimes you get involved in something that needs a calm, methodical approach.

You know what it's like to feel anxious - it's horrible feeling anxious. It's stressful having that feeling, having butterflies in your stomach, even for a day, and you don't sleep at night.

I think people like to be scared. I think people like tension and suspense in a movie.

You can't do something that is morally vacuous or dysfunctional and then write it off saying, 'It wasn't my film, I was just doing a job in it.'

People need revelation, and then they need resolution.

My heroes were all in the theatre.

I think you can't be really posh and be an interesting actor. I'm a bit of a posh rough.

Temperamentally I'm not a natural producer, because I don't have the patience.

If rhetoric study was the military, grammar teachers would be the drill sergeants.

Don't use Buddhism to become a Buddhist. Use Buddhism to become better at whatever else in your life you are doing already.

I am a comedian and you guys know whatever I say, I don't mean any of it.

Most of my friends that I know now [were sexually assaulted] stayed silent. And I see that still happening today. A lot of women will stay silent and not share what happened to them.

I thought I knew what fear was, until I heard the words 'You have cancer'.

I was shy. I was more than shy.

When people ask me which is your favourite portrait, they expect it to be Diana, or someone famous. But the answer is my dog, Puffy. They think I mean Puff Daddy. No, it is the dog.

As writers become more numerous, it is natural for readers to become more indolent; whence must necessarily arise a desire of attaining knowledge with the greatest possible ease.

My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins.