Surprise is perhaps the storyteller`s greatest weapon.

When you`re an actor you don`t really know what you have to do until you see what you look like.

I won`t say I wouldn`t be grateful and happy and delighted and thrilled to bits to receive a nomination. But I wouldn`t be suicidal if it didn`t happen.

Because when you decide to do a script, you don`t think, Oh, I haven`t a clue how to do that. "Ooh, let`s do that." I don`t... No. If I read something and think, "I can do that," that`s the job I`ll do. If I look at something and think, "How would I begin to do that?" I`m not an actor who responds well to a challenge."

If the script is telling the story well, that is your inspiration, and you do not need to go somewhere else.

Once Miramax gets involved, if they like your movie, there`s a big machine that gets involved.

All good actors are easy to work with. It`s the ones that aren`t very good who tend to be very difficult.

I`m temperamentally suited to the business of acting. I`m quite fatalistic. If it`s not happening, it`s not happening, and there`s very little you can do.

All good actors are easy to work with. It`s the ones that aren`t very good who tend to be very difficult.

You can`t do things for money. You just can`t act them. There`s gotta be something about the script that you really want to do. I wouldn`t do a job if I didn`t think I could do the best work I possibly could.

There`s only one shot you have at a movie, and that`s your best shot. If you can`t give it that, don`t go. They`re paying you! You gotta do a job for them.

If you have something that you know is important to you and vital to you... then this will perhaps help people understand the importance of confronting it and being brave about it.

It`s no good being great in something that goes straight to video.

There are no acting challenges in a good script, only in a bad script.

Acting for me is not that quid pro quo.

I would recommend it to everybody, every now and again you just put a dress on, see what it feels like, because it`s, its interesting. A whole complex series of thoughts and feelings assail you as you look at yourself.

[on deciding which roles to take]: "You just follow your nose. You ask those simple really instinctive questions like you know: Can I shine in this role?, Can I do this role better than anybody in the world?, Is there something in it that I recognize?... Its really not to do with the money, or the director, or the other members of the cast. The first simple thing is: Am I going to enjoy playing this character?... Its a purely instinctive decision."

One of the characteristics of plays that are made into films is that they can be very talky.

You don`t have any kind of sense of being foolish when you are acting. When you`re younger you don`t want to look a fool, so you don`t do things that might make you vulnerable.

I once did a role which I couldn`t rehearse in my street clothes, I had to have the character`s costume on before I could rehearse it. I just couldn`t think as the character unless I looked like him, or I knew that I looked like him.

Most stuff you can do standing on your head.

I have talent. I know it. I`ve been doing this for 30 years. But at the same time, you not only have to be good; you have to be good in hits.