I was a slightly melancholy child and I think films were a way of escaping for me.
I mean I’m 16 and 17 years wiser now. So if I could do it when I was 18 with a guy, I can certainly do it at 33 with a lady.
I don’t just look at things as an actor. I’ve also written several films, so I look at it as a storyteller and I know if something worked and should have been in there for the benefit of the story and the benefit of the character.
It’s generally more fun playing the villain.
So I try not to do press and if you can keep the balance of keeping a certain degree of anonymity and do interesting work then you can hope for a degree of career longevity.
It could be my downfall, but I don’t think it is – Hollywood is run on perception, and if you stray off the path of what you want to do with your career, it’s suicide.
My philosophy about the whole thing is that awards are like gifts: it’s lovely to receive them, and it is very bad form to covet them.
I’m usually the guy who knocks everyone out in order to get the girl.
It’s always difficult to really sum up exactly why a relationship works.
I’m reading scripts, desperately wanting to work. I’ve set a couple of things up for next year.
It’s hard to smoke a pipe, and it’s actually kind of brutal. It burns your mouth and your throat, and to keep it lit.
I’m happy being an actor, it’s what I have always wanted to do. I’m just lucky I got to do it so early.
I watch these actors who when you go to buy a pint of milk you see them smiling on the cover of 20 magazines. Then when you see them in a film it’s hard to believe the character because you just see them everywhere.
The landscape of cinema is not original. Not to say there aren’t great movies being made, but it’s much easier for studios to make movies that have built-in audiences. So it’s all remakes, adaptations, a lot of remakes of adaptations.
Television is all about sound. You’ll never get a moment of silence unless there’s something really extraordinary going on, on screen, visually. They never let a moment of silence pass without being filled in television because it’s a very sound-driven medium.
No, I do a bunch of things to entertain myself. I paint, I make music, I take photographs.
In the early part of your career you are always compared with somebody until you can stand on your own two feet.
If I went to them all dressed up and flashed a nice smile for the cameras it would probably be easier for me to get work. But I just can’t tolerate it.
You have to keep people engaged until you get them through the next commercial. I’m not complaining about working in TV, at all, but just as an artistic reaction, I find myself being so drawn to moments of silence where things are allowed to breathe.
And I just want to work with good directors and good people.