I'm a terrible actor. I'm still learning. When I first started, I wish I knew then to trust myself more, really. I was in a terrible panic in the early part of my career.
— Hugh Grant
My whole history of being an actor is unusual and slightly disgraceful because it should be something you burn to do.
If it's a choice between doing a film and not doing a film, I'd rather not. But then, you remember that you're supposed to be earning a living and that it's your career.
I think marriage is only necessary if you've got children. It's quite nice for them.
After I found that I had become an actor, slightly to my surprise, I did have some insecurity, and I did take some rather strange acting classes at a place called The Actor's Studio in London. I don't think they did me any good at all.
Theater has always been much more fun. You get a laugh, and it's really encouraging.
I think there's something unromantic about marriage. You're closing yourself off.
At home, I hardly ever leave London. I don't like the countryside in England.
It's very rare in life to be sure about something - particularly when it's an issue.
I'm quite proud of some of the films I've done, but less for the acting than for the fact that they're unpretentious and entertaining. I'm proud of having made unpretentious choices.
I have no doubt that I'd be a marvelous father. Maybe not when they're tiny, but when they're a little bit older, I think I'd be rather good.
I think I'm rather young and sprightly, but then you see pictures of yourself and think, 'Who is that old man?' and I realise I'm not as young as I thought I was.
For any new technology there is always controversy and there always some fear associated with it. I think that's just the price of being first sometimes.
I had Courtney Love's left bosom out of her dress on my plate in front of me. It was extraordinary. I didn't know where to look.
And film acting is incredibly tedious, just by its nature. It's incredibly, mind numbingly slow.
I cling to the fantasy that I could have done something more creative. Like actually writing a script, or writing a book. But the awful truth is that I... probably can't!
I find it hard to understand why Scorsese has never called. You know, given the natural menace I bring to the screen.
For a few years, I thought I was putting show business behind me. I was busy doing other things in life, particularly with politics. I was not out looking for films, really. I lost interest.
It's really frightening, American food on the whole. That's what always strikes me, coming from Europe: There's just so much of it! Then you plop down in front of the TV and watch ads for Weight Watchers. 'Lose weight now!' Well, eat less!
The emphasis in 'Notting Hill' was perhaps, I thought, slightly more on the romance than on the comedy. But I think 'Mickey Blue Eyes' is maybe slightly more on the comedy. And the tone on 'Mickey Blue Eyes,' it's a far sillier film.
I'm quite jealous of my Scottish relations, in whose culture everyone, in a Jane Austen kind of way, got married very young, when you're too young to be cynical or jaded and just started having children.
Something about teaching is curiously attractive, actually. I don't know what it is.
It's always more fun to be an anti-hero. They're more interesting.
I always admire the French and the Italians who are very devoted to their marriages. They take them extremely seriously, but it is understood that there might be other visitors at 5 o'clock in the afternoon. You just never boast about. They never say anything, but that's what keeps marriages together.
As it is, I have a limited range as an actor - light comedy. I have never been a fan of romantic comedies, and yet that is what I have ended up mostly doing.
I'm a terrible vacillator; I can be sure of something one day and change my mind the next.
I quite like Pilates now. I have a Pilates girl in every city.
I look at life and I see some very happy relationships, but I also see the vast majority as not being that happy.
If you have a smothering parent, the effect it can apparently have on a child is to give them, in equal doses, a sense of too much self-esteem, because they are mummy's little princess or prince, and low self-esteem. It affects future relationships.
But when you're a celebrity, you discover that you're no longer the pursuer, but the one being pursued. That's one of the disappointments I have had since becoming a single man.
Women are frightening. If you get to 41 as a man, you're quite battle-scarred.
And I particularly like the whole thing of being boss. Boss and employee... It's the slave quality that I find very alluring.
I don't have any particular burning desire to go back to being cuddly. Not really.
I think maybe in a way it gets worse because you come in with a real reputation and they've paid you lots of money and all that.
I used to pre-rehearse everything and then bring my pre-rehearsed performance to the set. Now, I'm learning to let it happen in the moment. American actors are much better at that than British actors. If I knew how to trust myself, I would have been much more relaxed.
'Notting Hill?' Does that poke fun at being British? Maybe it does. In 'Mickey Blue Eyes,' that's kind of the point: the clash of worlds, the unlikely combo of a respectable Englishman and a mob guy. If you take out the Britishness, you don't really have much.
The angry Scot is a cliche not without some foundation. That's the Lowland Scot - I'm a Highlander. We're particularly lovely and charming.
My contemporary art collection began with just needing to put things on the wall. I was looking around my Victorian house thinking, 'What would be the coolest is contemporary art - it will make me look young and interesting.' I'm more than 80 percent skeptical of the whole thing.
My mother was a teacher.
Do I think human beings are meant to be in 40-year-long monogamous, faithful, relationships? No, No, No. Whoever said they were? Only the Bible or something. No one ever said that was a good idea.
Japanese women have always loved my films, even when no one else did. Ever since I made 'Maurice' in the 1980s, I've been getting hundreds of letter from Japanese girls. They definitely have a special place in my heart.
I'm such a chronic relativist, I can't hold down a strong opinion about many things long enough.
I'm very unrelaxed doing a newspaper interview.
I'm horrible in the mornings. I'm grumpy.
I couldn't put my hand on my heart and say I think that being in a relationship is a natural state for a human being.
My laziness is really profound. I'm really interested in where it comes from - it almost feels chemical. And we've all got ADD now, short attention span and all that.
I don't particularly like babies. I don't mind them for about four minutes. That's my max. After that I can't quite see what everyone's fussing about.
Basically, my life is so boring, it's embarrassing.
But I just know from experience that accent wise, even if you're an accent genius, crossing the Atlantic is the hardest thing in the world either way.
I don't think there's much point in putting me a deep, dark, heavy, emotional film because there are people who do it so much better than I do.
