I started doing the big Hollywood stuff, and I realised, 'Oh, there's no rehearsal at all; you just turn up on the set, and sometimes you haven't even met the other actor, or the woman who's playing your wife, and you're suddenly in bed with them.'
— David Thewlis
'Naked' kind of kicked me off into the film world. It just so happens that all of the things that I have been offered have been films, and I've enjoyed the travel that goes along with that.
We didn't need the Internet for Nazi Germany to happen. But I feel like there's this lack of humanity because of it.
You always have to look for something beautiful wherever you go.
I paint a bit myself. My house in Clerkenwell has a room that is done up like a big installation.
I've been offered TV things over the years, but usually, that's about that I don't want to be away from home for that long, because it's a long time to be away your home country and my family.
The thing about 'Harry Potter' is it's great fun because of the people - I was usually with Julie Walters and Mark Williams, Brendan Gleeson, Robbie Coltrane, and the kids. Wonderful, funny, amazing people. If you're going to hang around on a set bored, you might as well do it with Julie Walters.
I'm often cast as religious figures, good and bad, such as 'Kingdom Of Heaven.'
After Cannes, my agent told me to get the next flight to LA. He was right. I had a part in 'Prime Suspect 3' by the end of the week.
It's certainly not easy having to spend a lot of time apart, and having a five-year-old child who's got to be at school. So we need to learn how to organize our time really well because for months we will be in two different countries.
I'd been a stepparent for about two years with a woman who had a child, and I came to realize I adored children and was good with them. So I was very happy when Anna got pregnant.
When you do something well, this is the best job in the world.
I'd only read a bit of the first book. And I just knew about all the media furor over it. But I'd not read books 2 or 3. I'd just read a bit of it. And I'd seen the films.
Restoration I did because I really loved e novel and I like Michael Hoffman, who directed it, but it wasn't a really challenging part for me. I'm not critical of the film: I just don't think I gave a very interesting performance.
And it was only released in London last week, so when I go back to England Monday or whatever, I am expecting heaps of adulation. I'm hoping there is. If that doesn't happen I will be disappointed.
What we do is ridiculous! I think that even when what I'm doing is serious, even when I'm not turning into a werewolf. It's a silly thing to do, isn't it? It's what you do in the playground when you're kids - but actors just never stop doing it.
Dad worked in the same shop, behind the same counter, five or six days a week, for 38 years, and hated it.
I see people around me with very unhappy love lives, who may have held out for that perfect somebody. And the failure to achieve that brings along a lot of bitterness which is very unattractive; therefore they're probably less likely to achieve it.
No matter what one looks at and finds temporarily pleasing, it can never be as beautiful as just a tree, really.
I am the sort of guy who does go to modern art shows.
Publishing a novel was such a proud thing for me. When I was a kid, I used to say to my mum and dad, 'I'm going to write a book. You'll see.' So when I did ,and it was published, and people liked it, it was great.
For years, I've been mistaken for Rhys Ifans. All the time. People come up and say, 'Notting Hill?' I nearly got beaten up once for not being Rhys.
I thought 'Charlie And The Chocolate Factory' was terrible. I'm a big fan of Johnny Depp and Tim Burton, so I don't know what went wrong with that.
It wasn't a good idea to work on 'Naked' in the first months of a marriage. I was living apart from my wife in a flat overflowing with books I was reading for the part.
The making of 'Naked' was an absolutely phenomenal, mind-bending experience. That film was life-changing and put my career onto a whole different level.
I'd had a relationship with a French girl, a Japanese girl, an American girl, a Filippina and she was there all the time - a Lancashire girl. I thought: 'It's a Lancashire girl I was looking for. Why didn't I realize it?'
I was still listening to the Beatles until I came here, you know.
I met the Coens here a few years ago and they said they liked my work.
Well I am afraid that I am going to die, because I have just put a down payment on a house.
I had such a nice time making it, and I can't wait to make the fifth one. The whole crew were just really, really lovely. All the costume people, the make-up girls, the kids - even my driver.
I usually do watch what I've done because I think it's important. I think you can learn from it and see what you thought you were doing and what ends up on the screen.
The world is enormously dangerous and scary. I worry very much for my daughter. I'm not sure we're in control any more, and I think the Internet is partly responsible for that.
You can't actually be just a movie actor in Britain, because we don't make that many movies.
I could, of course, have written about the film world and the jealousy there and the frequent belief that others don't have talent. But, for some reason, it just struck me to write about art.
I can remember, after I started doing films, my mum began going to more arthouse films. She went to see 'Edward Scissorhands' and phoned me up and said: 'What was that all about? He had scissors on his hands.' Good question. I think she should review films on Channel 4.
I've always loved writing. It was always what I wanted to do.
In 'Seven Years In Tibet,' I played a Buddhist. But I'm not religious at all, really.
I'm not one of those people who's against doing remakes.
I keep myself content by doing lots of different stuff and make sure that my next role is completely different to the last. I just enjoy the versatility of it, the challenge of doing lots of different things. It keeps the job interesting.
I don't worry. I'm more stoical. Of course I have insecurities. I fear getting older. I fear death and illness. I'm not prone to depression, but I get depressed because everybody gets depressed. Suddenly I'm away from my family or doing a job I'm not enjoying.
Before Anna, I'd had a few relationships and I'm glad I've been around a bit. I know where it's gone wrong or know who are the wrong people for me and who I might be wrong for.
Yeah, well that's the best thing about it, I think, is knowing kids and kids getting mental when they know you're in it. Any kid you meet and anyone I know tells the kid you're in it and they get short of breath.
It wasn't the greatest script in the world, but not many people can say they've played a wicked king in a swashbuckling Arthurian special-effects monster movie.
The very best thing about doing it is seeing the reaction on kid's faces when you tell them you've done it.
I don't think Alfonso was a big expert on Potter either. He was feeling his way through it more than I was.
