Intrigue is so much more effective. I don't like to be over-prescriptive of an audience. The same with a book or with art - people shouldn't read too much before they explore.
— Rupert Friend
I was bullied a lot... doing anything overly well was punished by the kids.
I get bored quickly. Always have. Short attention span.
This industry is too bonkers to understand. Every single part is completely different.
People say I have a scary face. I find that to be a mixed compliment.
It's great to sit and talk about the films and the people I work with, rather than where I buy my socks or whatever.
I really admire artists who take the time to recharge their batteries and not continually call on it. I think you can spot tired and jaded artists quite quickly.
I don't think the idea of working in Hollywood really exists anymore. I think you work in films, and where the film is shot is where it's shot. The studio system doesn't really exist.
I like Scottish people because they feel very true. They're always level and straight. They get a reputation for being hardened because of it, but I find them to be scrupulously honest people.
I grew up in the countryside in the middle of nowhere in England and got out as soon as I could!
I don't really use the Internet or the newspapers to find out about people.
I think saying you're bad at something is rather wonderful because then it doesn't matter anymore.
I'll tell you, there's no goodies and baddies in the world, there's just people with intentions that sometimes clash.
I believe that if you can discover something of the truth of a person, then you will start to understand, and to understand is to move towards, if not like, then at least an empathy of some kind.
I can only go places because I know that I can go away from them, if that makes sense. I like the gypsy lifestyle that filming affords.
I believe in allowing an audience the opportunity to make up their own mind.
I find it quite unsettling if I'm doing the same thing that I did yesterday.
If you are going to have any chance of replicating life, you need to live it.
I only do the press for the work. I don't have a publicist. I don't go to events or self-promote or endorse things or whatever it is people are meant to do in that world.
It might look like some incredibly complicated map to get from English period films to American action anti-heroes, but it really is just about not having a plan.
I don't have a publicist. I don't go to events or self-promote, or endorse things, or whatever it is people are meant to do in that world.
Everybody has many people inside of them; I think we tend to present the one we feel is most appropriate at first, in order to gain acceptance or achieve what we want. It gets really interesting when this technique fails, and other levels are revealed.
Sport is not my thing.
My great grandparents are Scottish, and I have this very tenuous connection which I try and bump up whenever I can, because I'd much rather be Scottish than English.
My auditions for drama school were miserable, but one thing I had on my side, although I had no experience or skill or training, was that I wanted to learn everything.
I think you can decide how much of yourself you're willing to make public.
I'm a terrible dancer.
The accent in England can change literally from street to street, and people have this sort of feudal tribalism whereby you can identify somebody's provenance by their voice.
I think that the process of trying to become somebody else, and obviously the director/actor relationship in trying to do that, is such a weird, undefinable thing.
I'm not intelligent enough to be a doctor, and kind of hands down you can't argue with the worth of that. But I don't really have an opinion about the worth of making art.
I wasn't interested in football. It made me different. I wore glasses, had bad hair, a funny name, you name it.
That routine thing is not comforting to me. It's the opposite to that.
I've never thought it was a good idea to act back-to-back.
You fire blanks, but the guns eject real brass, hot cartridges. They're, like, 400 degrees.
I've never got a part in the same way twice. I've never prepared the same way. I've never experienced the filming the process the same way.
My father started his own business, and before that was a freelance lecturer, and my friends are artists and musicians; they don't have real jobs - none of us have real jobs.
I really love living in cities where the people living above, below and next to you are from totally different worlds to you.
There are some great actors I don't want to meet because I don't want to know how they did it. I don't want to know anything about their personal life, and the illusion, or whatever it is, the shape-shiftery magic stuff that they do, which is my joy.
Edinburgh is so cultural and such a beautiful place to walk around.
I'm only really interested in taking a part if it's nothing like me.
I don't think you can decide how famous or not you become.
Growing up in England, you're sort of spoiled, in a way. You sort of take it for granted that within a half-hour's drive, you could be walking around a stately home from the 1700s. It's not very hard to do - in California, you've got to take a flight!
I think that what drives most of us as human beings is the want for something. You might have a hope, or a big dream, or a goal that you haven't yet achieved.
There are two qualities that I've noticed in good directors: One is that they have their vision very strongly in place; and two is that they listen to everyone's opinion and still remember their vision.
'On the Road' completely changed the way I looked at what you could do with your life.
