I've never hankered for any role.
— Ian McShane
If I'd had the choice when I was 14, and someone had said to me, 'You can either be a footballer or an actor,' I'd have said: 'Well, can't I be a footballing actor?'
I don't want to be in 'Expendables 5.' You can keep those kind of movies.
Do you follow American politics? They hate Obama. Hate him. He's a black man. That's what it is: it's racist. This guy is no bleeding-heart liberal. He's a centrist.
You don't know where life takes you.
I enjoy every role I do.
Whenever there was a pause on the 'Hercules' set, everybody whipped their Blackberries out of their skirts - 'Are you texting the King of Thrace to tell them we're on our way?'
Acting is great therapy - you get to do things you'd normally get arrested for.
My daughter said, 'I don't think granddad really suits you.'
The bad boys get all the best lines.
I don't do social media.
Theater is a dance of a different kind, a dance of rawness and characters stripped down.
As long as the cheques carry on coming in, and I'm enjoying my work, I shall continue acting.
You don't particularly want to stay close to your ex-wife. Or why would she be your ex-wife?
I'm a child of the Sixties.
I come from the liberal side of thinking: Better one guilty man should walk free than one innocent man found guilty.
I don't think that acting is as youth-obsessed as the general culture. In acting, as you get older, you get better, and the parts you get improve, too. But that's only true for a man, not a woman.
Blackbeard is probably the most infamous pirate who ever lived. He's one of those characters for which most of your work is done before you start.
When you're doing a medieval show like 'Pillars,' it starts off a bit like a school play. You're all in funny costumes; you've had your coffee, and you say, 'Good morning'. Then you go on set and, if you've got good actors and directors, it takes on a life of its own.
What 'Deadwood' did was to talk about how capitalism started, how civilised society came in, and how that brought its own problems.
If 'Deadwood' had gone on another two years, I wouldn't have got as many movies made.
There's only two kinds of actors - good ones and bad ones... and lucky ones and unlucky ones.
People tweet before they think, and it becomes obsessive.
I would like to be in a really big, successful film - boffo, spectacular, $500 million!
My second marriage was to a girl I met in Manchester, kept a long-distance relationship going for two years, then we got married... disaster.
What's great about acting is you can let all your wackiness hang out while you work.
I don't believe in the death penalty, but I understand personal vengeance.
When you're in your early 20s, you go ahead and do everything. And it's very hard to judge yourself.
Bosses will tell you they are looking for something different but they're not, actually.
I don't remember my first two marriages... the details are very sketchy.
What you do is, you just do the gig, enjoy, get on with it, and treat the rest as horse doodle.
Acting's boring.
When you've done a show that's as successful as 'Lovejoy' was, it hangs around for a few years, and people know you from it. I escaped the shadow when I stopped 'Lovejoy' by not doing any television for four years.
I had a teacher at school who said, 'We are going to do a play next year, and you're in it.' He said, 'You should try out for the Royal Academy as an actor.' I did and got in. I was 17. My mum wasn't too happy, but it worked out OK.
Mum and Dad were both happy for me to do what I wanted.
Seventy years old! How did that happen? I was part of the generation that wasn't going to die.
You set paths for yourself, but as you get older, things change.
I'm from the disco era where everybody thought they were John Travolta... What song is going to get me on the dance floor? Anything from 'Saturday Night Fever,' and you're up there like a demon.
I think the reason 'Sexy Beast' was so good was it wasn't just another run-of-the-mill gangster film; it was a love story.
I never wanted a life of having a nice house, driving around, settling down.
Robert Fisk is my hero. In America, they think he's a terrorist.
'Lovejoy' has a special place in my heart because it was through my efforts that the series first came to the screen.
My dad was a football player - a soccer player - for Manchester United, and I loved playing football, but I also happened to be the guy in class who was pretty good at sight reading. My teacher gave me scripts, and I was very comfortable.
The bad boy: always more fun.
Every actor has to love and loathe the character he plays.
I had a bit of a male menopause. It started at the age of 18 and continued until I was 45.
I mean, I'm an actor. I do what comes along.
