Someone said to me the other day: “Well, you’re eventually going to live until 110.” And I said: “Well, who’s going to keep me? What age do I retire? 100?” How are you going to live all those years and who is going to keep you doing it? I have a couple of grandchildren now so I’m banking on them.
To me, growing old is great. It’s the very best thing – considering the alternative.
Nobody did a campaign for me. I was nominated out of the blue and won out of the blue. So that was it.
I had an extraordinary belief in myself. For years people told me to give it up and even though I was poverty- stricken, I never thought I should give it up.
I’ve got a lot of back-up because my father was a Catholic, my mother was a Protestant, I was educated by Jews and I’m married to a Muslim. So I won’t lose out on a technicality.
The Quiet American is anti the people who took them into the Vietnam War.
Growing up, there was only classical music on BBC Radio. We had to listen to the American Forces Network in Germany, which played pop songs, or the pirate radio boats off the coast.
The greatest luxury is not driving. I didn’t own a car until I was 30, and that was a Rolls-Royce, so it was cheaper to insure a chauffeur. I never want to drive again. My mind is always on other things. I hate parking, and I’m very short-tempered and would get road rage, I’m sure.
When it comes to politics, I believe you have to cut the cake so that everybody gets a piece, but at the same time, you have to keep in mind that somebody has to make the cake.
Some men just want to watch the world burn.
I come from the slums; I come from a hard background; I come from a poor family; and I was a soldier.
No matter what the reason, if you start to scream and shout, you look a fool, and you feel a fool, and you earn the disrespect of everyone.
I’ve never been competitive with other actors. I’ve been competitive with myself and I’m my own worst critic, a terrible critic I am, and unless I get something right, I feel very unhappy.
The first actor I ever saw was The Lone Ranger. I thought, That’s what I want to do.
I want to stick around with the big boys. I don’t want to be in the old folks home.
I just work in order to improve myself as an actor which is what I’ve always done.
I wear a baseball cap all the time, which I would never normally wear, and I walk very fast.
I’m doing the next Batman. I have to become obsessed about what is offered to me.
You have to remember, I never became successful or wealthy till I was 30.
I’d never been in one of those great big blockbusters.