Every anti-gay remark from the Church gives the thug a license to be cruel.

The performance is created by the director. The actor is the material. And I think that has to be true.

There's no sex in Middle Earth.

All other areas of my life, I'm hopeless. I can't even be certain how to boil an egg.

My acting stopped being about disguise and became about truth which suits the camera, so my film career took off when I came out.

I was brought up in industrial south Lancashire, down the cobbled road from where LS Lowry (1887-1976) lived and painted.

No one needs to feel sorry for me or anyone else who has fallen victim to success.

In fact, my face has shrunk in the meantime, but it won't be particularly noticeable because it's covered up with hair. So I hope I'm not alarmed if I ever do sit through the five movies.

[There's] nothing special about an actor's imagination, except that he uses it a lot.

When you were on stage, you could be absolutely open about your emotions and indulge them and express yourself in a way that - in real life - I wasn't doing.

Why live outside the US? Do you want health care or safe food products or democracy or something? They're all overrated. Stay for the excellent cable TV.

Acting is no longer about lying. It's now about revealing the truth. People are at ease with me now. Honesty is the best policy.

We are very lucky to be men because women have a terrible time getting older parts. It's much more difficult.

Splendid architecture, the love of your life, an old friend... they can all go drifting by unseen if youre not careful.

I suspect the base that I'm working from is not particularly one of inquiry, but of memory of what I did last time.

In the theatre, the actor is in total control. The director wasn't in the house last night, the designer wasn't there, the author's dead. It's just us and the audience.

Personally, coming out was one of the most important things I've ever done, lifting from my shoulders the millstone of lies that I hadn't even realized I was carrying.

You can always pick out stage actors at the Oscars: they know how to walk.

Actors are merely the medium through which a story happens.