I remember watching 'Fargo.' I thought that was cruel. 'GoodFellas,' lots of Scorsese stuff, I think is unnecessarily violent and almost a celebration of violence. I don't see 'Game of Thrones' as being a celebratory violence.
— Jonathan Pryce
You can't punish the middle classes for going to drama school - you need to punish the education system and the associative governments for devaluing the arts.
I cry very easily.
I'd rather be Welsh than English, that's for sure.
I made a sofa that is constantly being updated the more people sit on it, or sit through it, or don't sit on it because it's so uncomfortable.
Actors, when they're older, still get a chance to let off steam or something and work things off on stage.
What's great about being an actor is you meet people and form a relationship very quickly.
People sometimes ask me why I did this or that project. I say, 'Well, they asked me.'
It took a while to decide I wanted to do Hamlet. It wasn't that I was daunted - I'd been acting professionally since my mid-20s and had some pretty big Shakespearean roles under my belt by that stage, at 32: Petruchio in 'The Taming of the Shrew,' Edgar in 'King Lear,' Antony, Richard III. But when it came to Hamlet, I hesitated.
The older you get, the more you find yourself looking for things you used to see and liked when you were younger.
I have just enough public appreciation to make me happy.
I'm not a star, I'm an actor - there's a difference!
When you play a character, you commit yourself to their beliefs.
Sometimes I just want to laugh.
When you sing on stage, the songs are part of the narrative, but in 'Unconditional Love,' it was just singing for singing's sake. It was playing at being pop star. As a young boy growing up in North Wales, that was my fantasy.
As a child, play, drawing, and painting were important to me - they still are.
I treasure my friends but not my possessions.
I know writers, and they seem to be the most disgruntled part of the art world.
I've never had therapy. Maybe the work is the therapy.
Hamlet' is a real ensemble piece: you have to realise that he's just one part of the story.
I'll read a book every now and then, but unlike most of my friends I don't always have one on the go.
When I left school, I wanted to be an artist, specifically a painter.
I live a very ordinary life. The rare awards ceremonies I go to are quite fun, because I can enjoy the irony of one minute walking to the tube, and the next being driven along the same stretch of road in a limo.
When the arts are taken out of the syllabus, people are not going to know what it's like to value the theater.
I try to see some good in everyone.
When I was young, I used to be very frightened of getting older and of death. Now, I'm more resigned to the inevitability.
I can tell stories to other actors about the level of aggression on stage in the '70s between actors - it was unbelievable.
It was very amusing to do 'GI Joe: Retaliation' scenes with Bruce Willis, who spends months rewriting his dialogue and then turns up and doesn't say it. Part of the time, he doesn't say anything, but mumbles and mutters.
It was easy for me to play someone with a massive ego. It's actually really fun to have the freedom to be that person.
One time, I had to do Edgar in 'King Lear' and Owl in 'Winnie the Pooh' on the same day.
'Macbeth' sags in act four - the England scene with Malcolm and Macduff just doesn't work theatrically. But with 'Hamlet,' although the play is so long, Shakespeare manages to sustain the arc.
Oddly enough, I'm not religious but I'm also very fond of St Peter's in Rome. When I'm there, I always know there's a good meal not far away.
I know people whose entire lives are ruined by fame. If you make yourself exclusive, people want to break that down, but if you go about doing your shopping, no one bugs you.
I grew up in the 1950s at the beginning of rock n' roll, and would strum a tennis racket in front of the mirror.
