After kids, the desire to improve as an actor remains, but time becomes hugely important. I want to do good work and do it well but then be at home. I love hanging out with my children, seeing how they behave, and stealing ideas off them. You can't do that if you're in a hotel, on a plane, or a film set. It's not real life.
— Cillian Murphy
I enjoy any chance to get in front of a microphone in a role. I'll do it.
I've said this before: myself and Tommy Shelby, he's the most unlike-me character I have ever played.
Men and women are custodians of this society, and we both decide what's going to happen for our future. I feel that very, very strongly.
If someone asks a stupid question, you can only give a stupid answer or appear arrogant.
That time, making 'Disco Pigs,' was kind of the most important period of my life. The people I met there remain my closest friends.
My whole career has been completely random and haphazard.
The color grading in 'Peaky' is a huge, huge element of the show's distinctive style, you know?
Nearly everyone says New York is their number one city in the world, don't they? It certainly is mine. But I feel like the ship sailed for me in terms of living in New York because I think you need to live there when you're in your 20s - when you can be poor and energetic and just don't care.
I don't have a burning passion to live in America per se but I would certainly like to work there.
I'd love to work in America, some of my favourite films come from America.
My wife can see always how a part affects me personally because she has to live with it.
There's a lot of comedy in Intermission but it's got this depth. It's not comedy for comedy's sake - it's informed by something else. I like stuff like that.
For me, it's about being at home and living a life. Taking the dog for a walk, doing the shopping, emptying the dishwasher, going for a run.
I don't do karaoke. You know how some people don't like massages? They don't like massages; I don't like karaoke.
Geoff Dyer is an abundantly talented writer.
I know I am old-fashioned, but I don't want to bring out a fashion line, I don't want to bring out an album. I just want to do the work as best as I can, and if that effects change for somebody, then that is great. I don't want to change the world.
A director, I forget who, told me that it takes 30 years to make an actor. And I believe that. You have to learn your craft, learn your trade - and also you have to live a life and experience things.
It's only an advantage as an actor - looking younger than you are. If you can maintain it.
I would not rule out a musical. What I will categorically say is that I will not be in a 'Peaky Blinders' musical.
'She's a Mystery to Me' was released in 1987, when I was 11 or something, and I absolutely adored the song. This song was written by Bono and The Edge, and the story goes that Bono woke up with the tune in his head, then thought that the only voice who could sing this song is Roy Orbison.
At the moment I'm doing this space movie, so I'm obsessed with physics and space travel. I know three months down the line it's gone. Then I'll be able to superficially say stuff about space.
I don't think they'd ever make a movie about Chuck Baker but I'd love to play Chuck Baker.
It was very much about performances, the whole ensemble thing was just great - everybody working together. Sometimes it didn't feel like a film set. It wasn't technically driven, it was very, very enjoyable.
The best roles you have to fight for. You have to really want to do it and you have to go after it.
What we do as actors is we go through phases where you superficially learn all this information.
I've written my own music, and I play guitar.
It's embarrassing sometimes, the way actors or musicians sometimes get made untouchable.
I remember being 18 and being fed up with everything - fed up with society, fed up with the political system, fed up with myself - and then you kind of go, 'Actually, this voting thing is amazing,' because you have a chance to change it, right?
Patience is something that, as a young man, I didn't have - when waiting for parts to arrive or waiting for people to behave as I wanted them to.
I loved living in London in my 20s and 30s, but after a while, you kind of go, 'Right, is this it? Is this it for the rest of my days? Or is there some other possibility?'
I had a really good time in my 20s and 30s.
I've always been an actor who works in every medium - I've worked in theater and film and television - I've never seen any difference between the three.
42 is a really boring age, isn't it?
Having started out in theatre, I feel an impulse to do it as much as I can.
I enjoy all aspects of it, I don't have a preference for any medium. I think each of them has its attractions and I would hope they each inform the other in some way.
It's obvious that if you're going to play a character you need to amass information about that person and about their environment or their era that they're in and use as little or as much as necessary.
Then I wanted the character to be feminine as opposed to effeminate. Because it's easy to be camp or queen. Anyone can do that. What's difficult is to play feminine.
