I've got four kids to feed and a wife to provide for. It's a worry but a great responsibility as well and one I relish.

There's no great mystery to acting. It's a very simple thing to do but you have to work hard at it. It's about asking questions and using your imagination.

I was brought up in a house full of women; the first time I realised no one was interrupting me was when I was on stage - that's probably the subconscious reason I became an actor.

I used to do a lot of comedy. I don't know what happened. I think it's my face.

What I love about the East End is that theres a great perseverance, determination and courage. What I dislike about it is that there is sometimes a celebration of ignorance.

My business is not to show anybody anything; my job is just to do it.

It's a very fascinating thing for an actor to play somebody who is suffering, and you have to express the suffering, but in an inarticulate way and sometimes a dysfunctional way, through violence.

I wanted to work with Bryan Singer because I like his films.

Different races never fazed me because coming from Bethnal Green, I'd been around people of different races forever. Different class? That was much harder.

I want to be respected as an actor. There's my ego. But I don't have a great need to be liked by an audience.

The trick to acting is not to show off, it's to think the thoughts of the character.

Lips are the fingerprints of love.

Life is a constant build up and release of tension. If we go too far in either direction bad things happen.

No one could match Howlin' Wolf for the singular ability to rock the house down to the foundation while simultaneously scaring its patrons out of its wits.

I'm a person who is only invested in the pleasures and enjoyments of life. All the rest is left to the men. I've always remained what you might call "feminine" about the whole [work] thing.

A lot of people don't want to feel anti-black by being opposed to Obama.

Big voice, big heart - Mary Ellen Wessels is a pleasure to hear.

The world used us as an excuse to go mad.

Children, old people, vagabonds laugh easily and heartily: they have nothing to lose and hope for little. In renunciation lies a delicious taste of simplicity and deep peace.

Incubated. And then raised. And then beheaded. And then plucked. And then cut up. And then put on a grill. And then put on a bun. Damn, it's gonna take a while. I don't have time. Scrambled!

Autopsies give us the facts but not the truth.