I was, if you like, a successful schoolboy in that I had a degree of talent in all the required things that make you a success at school.

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.

I do not know what it was about that boy but just looking at him, even I wanted to clout him on the head. It was a head that invited violence.

I agree that sometimes it is difficult to choose between right and wrong, but not between right and stupid.

I want to have my own line and collection.

It's the good old paradox of democracy. We are individually pretty small drops in the bucket, but collectively we are all powerful.

This young lady, who instantly overwhelmed me with her kindness, is the ugliest creature I have seen in my entire life, with repulsive Jewish facial features.

Philosophy began when man ate the produce of the earth and suffered indigestion.

American straightforwardness is almost as disarming as Americans invariably think it is.

I want to be perceived as a guy who played his best in all facets, not just scoring. A guy who loved challenges.

Politics are for foreigners with their endless wrongs and paltry rights. Politics are a lousy way to get things done. Politics are, like God's infinite mercy, a last resort.