It's an unfair comparison because when things are developed in the UK, they're developed at script stage only.

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.

The problem is good has a limit, bad none!

We don't get to choose who we love. Or stop loving them when they're difficult.

Men know the damage a few words can do to girls’ hearts, and, idiots that we are, we swoon away and fall into the trap, excited because at last a man has set one for us

There is something very independent about French balloons - you feel you couldn't make a pet of one.

Americans have a warrior's mentality, most of them. That's how this society was built. The fact that you own a gun and shoot to defend your life is a very American way of thinking.

Beware of begging God for things you don't have to have.

You can feel like a mental patient, but that doesn't mean you have to act like one.

You have to be as fully prepared for the dull game as you are for the great game, or else you won't be prepared for the great one.

All great peoples are conservative.

Our aim is not just an educated nation but an intelligent one