At Christmas, individuals are apportioned their roles in the family script – you’re either the funny one or the sensitive one; or you either do the cooking or the washing up. And those roles aren’t easy to change.
Make sure you tell the people you love that you love them. Loudly and often. You never know when it might be too late.
America and Europe are so different in the way they conceive of themselves and art and cinema.
I have been allowed to inhabit different shades of human nature and different colours of truth indifferent circumstances.
As an actor, it’s much, much easier to be really nasty to someone that you really like.
I suppose my understanding of villains is that they’re just people who are infected by all of the darker instincts – that they haven’t got the discipline to make the right choices.
Never stop. Never stop fighting. Never stop dreaming. And don’t be afraid of wearing your heart on your sleeve – in declaring the films that you love, the films that you want to make, the life that you’ve had, and the lives you can help reflect in cinema. For myself, for a long time... maybe I felt inauthentic or something, I felt like my voice wasn’t worth hearing, and I think everyone’s voice is worth hearing. So if you’ve got something to say, say it from the rooftops.
I love it when you go to see something, and you enter as an individual, and you leave as a group. Because you’ve all been bound together by the same experience.
There are a lot of people in this world who are afraid of caring or afraid of showing that they care, because it’s uncool. It’s uncool to have passion. It’s so much easier to lose when you’ve shown everyone how much you don’t care, whether you win or lose. It’s much harder to lose when you show that you care. But you’ll never win unless you also stand to lose.
Don’t be afraid of wearing your heart on your sleeve. For myself, for a long time – maybe I felt inauthentic or something. I felt like my voice wasn’t worth hearing. I think everyone’s voice is worth hearing. So if you’ve got something to say... say it from the rooftops! That’s what I would say.
Doing good in this world, and being kind and being honest and noble is really underrated. And I think you have... I think everyday people have enormous power, and they have enormous power for good, and if you’re good to people, the world is a better place.
I believe very strongly in kindness, in good manners, in treating people with equanimity and a sense of humour and all those things.
I guess when you smile, it’s just joy coming out of you.
Love your life.
No such thing as an original thought. We are shadows of stars that burned before our time.
It’s really fun when people recognize you in a passionate way.
Don’t be afraid of your passion. Like, just give it free rein. And be honest, and work hard. And it’ll all turn out just fine.
The grey area between right and wrong is something that appeals to a very contemporary sensitivity.
My mum always taught me the value of knowing, recognizing and acknowledging when you had a good day. There are so many bad days you will have in our lives and it’s good to know when you had a good one. There comes a point in life when you have to stop and smell the roses. Because... that’s the point.
I’ve had to work hard for a lot of things in my life. I remember being told I probably wouldn’t get into Cambridge University because I wasn’t smart enough. So I had to pull my socks up and prove to whoever it was who said I couldn’t do it that I could do it, and then I did.
The more authentic and honest you are in your interaction with the world, both professionally and personally, the better you will be placed to do the kind of work which will touch others and move their hearts and minds. Because if you mean it, the chances are it is going to mean something to somebody else.