I've had loss in my life, and I like to think my mother's energy lives on in some faintly Buddhist way. I do find some comfort there.

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.

It's hard to fight when the fight ain't fair.

One crime is everything two nothing.

The Bible has been a bestseller for centuries. Why should I let two thousand years of publicity go to waste?

Progress should have stopped when man invented the bicycle.

I think everybody ought to be allowed to be engaged in athletics at whatever level the audience will accept.

I started to work up in my old bedroom, playing, writing songs, and it somehow came to me that I could introduce soul music. Nobody seemed to be doing that.

Uncomfortable doesn't mean bad, uncomfortable simply means you're doing something you haven't done before.

I was raised by television. It was my first cultural window. It was a constant companion.

The crime novel has always been my favourite genre.

Intrinsic value can be defined simply: It is the discounted value of the cash that can be taken out of a business during its remaining life.