The Hollywood image of the movie business is all about ambition and high achievers like James Cameron. But the British film industry is much more about men who wear cravats and work with model trains and hope another series of 'Thomas the Tank Engine' will be commissioned.
— Peter Capaldi
The higher your profile, the more people want you.
A year after winning the Oscar, almost to the day, I was directing a dog food commercial.
I always thought it was funny that my grandparents had bought a ticket to New York and ended up in Glasgow.
Once you reach a certain age, you find yourself visiting hospitals a lot.
I think all actors experience ups and downs.
I wouldn't be here if it were not for the grant system that paid for me to go to art school - because my parents couldn't have afforded it.
I love these sort of documentaries, which you might turn on late on a Saturday night - like, say, 'The Alma Cogan Story.' But they are ripe for spoofing, because the presenters are always so serious and anxious to make themselves look like rather attractive and interesting people.
One of the problems with episodic television of any color is that everything has got to be okay at the end of the episode so it can start again next week.
I got into music, I was in a band, I was at art school. I was quite trendy, although I'd hate to meet myself. The over-preening, the pretentiousness, the arrogance of youth! I think, 'Oh, that guy was so full of himself.'
The biggest problem of all is that it's very difficult to tell my daughter, 'Swearing is not clever or funny,' because I earn a living by swearing.
I spent four months once doing a play on Broadway.
In Peter Ackroyd's book 'London: The Biography,' he describes the route of the medieval wall that enclosed the original city. Take the book and follow it from the Tower of London via the Barbican to Ludgate Hill. You experience the real history of London.
I love Hugh Laurie, but I don't want to be a guy who goes to work every day for nine months of the year in a corner of Burbank. I really don't. I like doing a bit here and a bit there and strange things, and I think that's held me back.
My parents didn't take me to the theatre to see Chekhov when I was growing up - we went to see 'Francie and Josie' once every five years.
We don't consider the Wizard of Oz or Father Christmas to be too old. They're still magical characters, and the fact they've been around the block only adds to their magic.
Drawing is the only thing I've found in which I can lose myself completely. I love it. It started as something that relaxed me, but now it's a struggle because I'm pushing myself. The day-to-day sketching is fraught.
I like the constant rise and fall of the British film industry. But above all, I like the workhorses who kept going no matter what.
I've only lost my temper three times in my whole life.
When I was at school, you couldn't draw and be into football, too. If you were into art, then you were seen as an absolute pansy, and there was no way you'd be admitted to the guys' world of football.
The nurses' job is emotional and distressing. Their day-to-day work is dealing with people withering and falling to pieces. So black humour is essential for them cope with that. It's just a consequence of their environment.
There are only a handful of really good TV programmes, and I'm blessed to be in one of them.
Generally I draw every day just to keep my hand in. I draw while I'm sitting on the Tube or in restaurants. Just doodling things and people I see.
I lived through a golden period where society felt that it was good to help people who didn't have a great deal of money fulfil their potential.
'Atlantic City' is very good.
'Doctor Who' has a certain amount of showbiz attached to it.
I have a fairly normal domestic life.
I was initially rather charmed by David Cameron, but I think he's revealing himself to be a slightly darker and less charismatic figure than he first appeared. There's a brutality about him.
I hate the Internet. It's full of rubbish. I'm on it all the time, watching terrible, useless things and ossifying my brain.
Maybe it's because I've been an actor for such a long time, but I think, unless you're a big star, you don't really have much control over anything. I've never been able to make any plans.
I just consciously try to enjoy the good things that are happening. And if it ended tomorrow, that would be fine.
For all I know, my grandfather was a bank robber in Kilsyth.
I'm fascinated by fire. When I was four, I wore an American fireman's hat all the time, and I still have one in my office today. Glasgow used to be called 'Tinderbox City;' there were always fires, people getting killed.
It was great being brought up in a Glasgow working-class tenement. It wasn't miserable, and it wasn't poverty stricken. It felt very safe, full of delights.
The British film industry has always tried to sell itself as something rather sophisticated. It's almost as if it thinks it is by royal command. It has always tried to claim the high ground, not only over Hollywood but over the whole of humanity!
One year was so bad for me and my wife that we were going to have to sell our house until Elaine decided to change career and earn some money.
Everybody loves monsters.
I've had very bleak experiences in hospitals, but they were also sometimes very funny.
I think the periods of being unsuccessful have made me a better actor.
I failed the audition to get into drama school.
My Italian granny and my mother made great spaghetti, but it wasn't a kind of southern Italian, Godfather-esque kind of thing - it was a wonderful, big mixing pot of all kinds of people - when you came home from school and your mum wasn't in, there were lots of people you could go to.
I'm just physically stupid.
It's one thing getting the job of Doctor Who, which is wonderful. And then the next thing they say to you is, 'We're going to announce it live on television!' And you think, 'That's not exactly what I thought I was signing up for!'
I think the truth is always interesting, but with politicians, you don't get to see much of that.
Why can't jazz musicians just leave a melody alone?
I don't go to pubs.
Nowadays, kids... young actors... they go straight to L.A. before they've even done anything.
I'm creative. I can't relax unless I've got some project on the go. I'm somebody from art school, and art school during the punk era, when you just had a go at whatever came along.
I think the whole spoiler thing has taken over the media.
I absolutely hate mowing the lawn. When I hear the mowers starting, I want to kill myself: it's the sound of death approaching. Hoovering's OK, but I never in my life wanted to have a lawn and certainly never wanted to mow one.
