One of the reasons a lot of actors go into the business is that for a short period of time, you get to be other people who you can only fantasize abo….

It has taken a long time for me to be able to really just be in front of the camera..

When you're dealing with killing people and things that are upsetting, that can be a delicate place to occupy yourself for a day..

One of the things I like about doing historical films is drawing the line between now and then..

Im not a big fan of patterns. I like the unexpected..

I think I come from a theatrical tradition where, if you look at the great theatrical actors of the British theatre, they took enormous pride in bein….

Acting gives me a chance to be people I will never be, in real life. I like changing who I am..

Ancient Rome was a violent place..

One of the great things about drama is that it makes you feel like you're not a crackpot, and that there are other people who think and feel the way ….

You need to be disciplined and you need to try to occupy a zone of acting that is always quite scary because you don't think you're doing anything..

I like television that grabs you by your throat..

We start off wearing frilly shirts and britches and being good guys and the heroes. And then as time goes on, every English actor ends up playing bad….

Actors tend to get better with age. You start cutting away the useless stuff and achieving a point of effortlessness and simplicity, which is all you….

One of the things that I discovered in my research is that some serial killers build an ultimate reality around themselves that they believe in, 100%..

My life is really precious. I don't want to spend it watching ambient TV that just drifts through you. I've got better things to do..

I think the James Bond thing has sailed. But of course I would want to be a Bond villain. They are great parts. I think it's highly unlikely, but one….

I like doing things that are very wildly different. I find that the meat and vegetables of being an actor is doing things that are completely differe….

I'd never read a piece of television where it's an hour script and it's perfect..

If you're playing Hitler, you don't play Hitler as an asshole. Hitler believed what he was doing was right. Any of those monsters and any serial kill….

I've never been "celeb-y" actor. You know, you don't catch me falling out of nightclubs at three o'clock in the morning. Well, very rarely! But I fin….

Violence is a very ugly thing. Violence is often so casual on film, and made to look so cool and so sexy, but violence is a repulsive, repugnant act ….