The older I get, I'm really reminded how important the arts are to our wellbeing as a society.
— Rhys Ifans
It's every boy's dream to play Captain Hook.
I've reached a point in my career when I can demand certain conditions, and one of them is a weekend break every three weeks during the shoot.
If you had to find a period in history that would equate to what the Internet has presented us with now, it would be Elizabethan England. It was a world in flux.
When you act, you've got to be like a poet or a musician. It's not about evidence before court. It's not a forensic subject. It's poetry; it's a completely different place.
I am not gadgety at all. It's not that I'm appalled by technology, but I've taken my time acquiring any of it.
People say: 'Oh, it's only acting,' but it's not ever just acting. At least not with me.
I don't do celebrity.
I've done a lot of Shakespeare onstage, and I'm not convinced that the Earl of Oxford was the author of all those works, but I am convinced that the Stratfordian William Shakespeare was not. My feeling is that it was an amalgamation of many writers, in the same way that most films are a collaborative endeavor.
I never thought I would be in a film.
There's two kinds of rock n' roll casualty: the one that has huge success and adoration, and then suddenly it stops. Or there's when you're in a band: it is all-consuming, so then you have the dream of that, and then the dream's taken away from you even before it happens.
Well, I need to be frightened on a regular basis.
I freely admit that I am a bit of a misfit.
If I'd been a rock star, I'd probably now be dead.
The war on drugs is being lost on a daily basis.
Very often, actors have to face being rejected time and again, and we must remember that the red carpet lasts just a minute.
It's a great life being an actor, and I wouldn't change it for anything.
I'm always flabbergasted and overwhelmed by the audience a film reaches.
I'm a passionate Welshman. I have a culinary relationship with language: I taste what I say because I have two languages, and each informs the other.
Whereas Superman is a godlike guy from another planet and Batman is this mysterious, unknowable billionaire, everyone in 'Spider-Man' is human and flawed.
I don't sit around with other actors and talk about the pain and the magic of acting.
When I was taught Shakespeare in school, it was such an alien, sanitized puzzle, it made no sense.
I've worked with Hollywood stars, but the reason most of the Hollywood stars I've worked with are Hollywood stars is that they're excellent actors, so I've been very lucky.
It's like a badge of honour if you're a British actor and you get the 'Harry Potter' call. It meant a lot to me.
Don't be late. Learn your lines. Be good to people. Treat people nice.
I am an artisan. I only became an artist when people watch what I do. That is when it becomes art.
In Wales, singing and storytelling are party skills, not professions.
I work hard and I party hard. When I go to work, I know what I am doing and I do it to the best of my abilities. When I party, I take exactly the same rule book with me.
You look at any culture, and prohibition has invariably been an unmitigated failure. It is just idiotic to criminalise any substance, I think.
Acting is a tough, difficult job with long unsociable hours, although it can be a brilliant job, too. I don't want to complain too much, as nurses, farmers and teachers are out working long hours.
We're in an age of enlightenment, and we have a choice as a society which path to take.
I never think career.
Howard Marks is a great friend and a great Welshman.
My personal life is invented for me, so why bother?
I'm a factory-floor actor: I learn the lines, I get there on time.
I went to the Guilford School of Music and Drama, which was affiliated with the Royal Shakespeare Company. I was lucky enough to be taught by a beautiful, wonderful teacher called Patsy Rodenberg, who works a lot with the Royal Shakespeare Company as a voice coach and technician.
In a sense, I feel a lot more an outsider in Los Angeles than I did in Newfoundland.
I've had the longest mid-life crisis ever.
If it is not scary, it is not worth doing.
It is joyous for any actor to enter other grounds of consciousness and thought. At the end of the day, we just all like dressing up and playing around.
My work is my way of expressing myself without being arrested.
