I do get stopped on the street, although rarely. And they always have something lovely to say.
— Ben Whishaw
I reckon domesticated cats have a pretty good life.
I think I have a degree of confidence, but I also have terrible insecurity, like anybody does.
I'm not tortured and neurasthenic - I'm really not.
When I finished my A-levels, I assumed I'd be able to get work as an actor. But I couldn't. I didn't get an audition. Nothing. So I thought I'd better train and then the parts would come.
My favorite Bond films are the really early ones, the first ones in fact, like 'Dr. No' and 'From Russia with Love.'
Keats himself spoke about how Shakespeare was capable of erasing himself completely from the characters he had created. As an actor, that is what I'm trying to do.
I've gone on workout regimes, but I seem to have a system that is very resistant to changing.
I love taking on other people's words. They are much more interesting to me than my own.
One of the things I find very difficult about theatre is the repetition - that something can slide away from your original intentions.
The thing I love most about acting is that your capacity evolves as you evolve as a human being.
The most amazing thing is when you find yourself watching someone in the cafe or something doing something weird. It's amazing what people do, isn't it, when you just look at them, when you take the time to look.
I'm a fairly private person.
I find it really hard to say anything coherent or interesting about the work I do.
The criminal justice system, like any system designed by human beings, clearly has its flaws.
I don't think I am especially interested in celebrities, but I love talking about what is going on with people and why they do what they do.
Your one certainty in life, your power as a human being, is that you have a choice in every situation about what you do next and about how you take what has happened to you.
I think the sensation of being moved by a piece of art is something that is really good for a person's soul.
I find it weird that people want to know about you.
We are so mired in the complexity of our reactions to other people that when you come across someone who is asocial, there is a simplicity that is refreshing.
For me, it's important to keep a level of anonymity.
I'd like to have a go at directing.
I wish that the arts were better supported, and you can't say that enough times, but I also believe that whatever happens, artists will keep going.
The thing I love about acting is that you can bring something very personal into the open and at the same time remain hidden because you're always playing a character in a story that someone else has imagined. You're always protected.
I think being very thin has had a lot to do with how I've been cast.
I was quite a shy child - not chronically, but I tended to blend into the background.
I love films. I love music. I love poetry and stories. All of that I feel... I sort of get very excited and fed by.
I used to collect knick-knacks, like wizards, trolls and little buddhas, and arrange them like precious things on a shelf.
In film, I find it very useful always to do some preparation before you start rehearsals or start shooting, because there's so much that's against you on a film set.
I am a typical Libran. I tend to see two sides of everything.
The thing about acting is that it's fairly random. At the end of the day you take what drifts past you or what's given to you.
Filmmakers tell stories to explore human nature, which is always a flawed thing.
When you have a character to work with, you carry them around in a strange way - they make you look at the world in a different way.
What I notice about people who are gifted in filmmaking is that they're great thinkers. They engage with big ideas and they engage with people.
I'm really hopeless with technology - I don't even have a computer.
I don't have any ambition to make lots of money or win an Oscar or anything like that. It's not about that for me.
Even today, England is a very repressed, repressive country, and there's pressure to be kind of a certain way, so people do things that ultimately make them sad.
I would have loved to have been a painter or a sculptor. I'm still fascinated by those things.
My intuition comes up with better stuff than my head, I think.
I don't think anyone can walk through the world in a state of vulnerability all the time, can they?
I love the characters I've had the opportunity to play.
It's fun to pretend you're good at something you know you wouldn't be good at in real life.
I think that sometimes in theater, I don't prepare much beyond going to the rehearsals.
