Mark Strong Quotes
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I studied law, so perhaps I might have made it to the Bar, though I gave up that idea when I suspected playing a barrister was probably much more fun than being one.
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Some jobs you do, they're just jobs. Others are life experiences.
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I've never been one of those actors who plays chess with his career and goes, 'I'm going to wait now and see what project comes up that can move me to this or that level.' I take stuff as it comes, and it just so happens that it hasn't dried up yet, touch wood.
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The fact that women are constantly supposed to be beautiful, gorgeous, and perfect all the time is something they have always had to live with. But now it's happening to men, too. There seems to be this imperative that you have to be hot or ripped or fit or healthy or whatever you want to call it.
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My genes are such that I've always been relatively in shape.
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I'm sure, in real life, spying is boring - there's probably a lot of sitting around and plenty of paperwork. But the world seems to think that spying is exciting, and that's how movies get made.
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I was born in Islington and grew up in Islington, so Arsenal was all around me, and supporting them was kind of unavoidable. The first season I started going to watch them was when we did the Double in 1971, so my first heroes were Charlie George, Ray Kennedy, and John Radford.
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No, I've never moved on with a play. I did the original 'Closer' in London but didn't transfer to the West End or Broadway with it. The same is true of 'Iceman': I didn't go to the Old Vic or Broadway with that. I don't know; I feel an allegiance often to the play where you do it first, in the theatre that it's in; you do it for that space.
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For me, family comes over and above everything.
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It's always interesting when you play a part and then suddenly people think you're an authority on the subject.
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All these portrayals we see of knights fighting must be absolute rubbish because knights in armour could literally have only had two or three blows and then they'd have had to sit down to have a cup of tea.
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As an only child, particularly if you're a boy without a father, you have to work out for yourself who you're going to be. And I do think, over the years, I've developed a need for control.
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My mother moved abroad when I was 11, my dad wasn't around from the time that I was a baby, so I was not the product of a family, but a product of observation - of watching what went on around me, of watching who I liked, what I didn't like, what I thought was good behavior and what I thought was bad behavior and tailoring myself accordingly.
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There's an honourable tradition of British actors who've gone to Hollywood playing baddies. Part of that is because we grow up with Richard III and Macbeth - we're not afraid of our villains.
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When you're making a psychological thriller, what you need to do is have an audience on shifting sand so they're never quite sure where they are.
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I was born in London, and my family is here. America is an interesting place, but it's incredibly different culturally. It doesn't take long being there before I want to get back.
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When I decided to crop what was left of my hair, I thought, 'It's all over. I'm never going to work again: it's basket weaving me for me from now on.' But what actually happens is your casting changes: you suddenly start to get a lot of villains and coppers and soldiers and even the odd sensitive vicar - you become institutionalised.
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If you think about Shakespeare, you remember Richard III and Macbeth before you remember Ferdinand, whose role is just to fall in love and be a bit of a wimp. I love the baddies. More important, though, is making the baddies somehow, weirdly, understood.
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In the past, if I didn't work, I didn't eat but now I feel I can not work and I won't starve.
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I had fantasies of being a European lawyer, but I quickly realised I probably just had fantasies of wearing a raincoat and carrying a briefcase and driving a BMW. I thought that would be cool.
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Listen - in life, if you can go into work and spend the day with Halle Berry, you're doing alright.
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Because I had children relatively late - in my 40s rather than in my 20s - it wasn't anything I ever knew that I would do. It kind of happened to me: I met the right woman and we had children. It was a revelation because it suddenly makes me realize, 'Oh, I get it. Now I know what to do with the rest of my life.'
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And I think in your 40s, you land a little bit, physically and mentally, you arrive at a place where you feel you've learned some stuff. Having children at that point meant I had something very useful to do for the next 20 years.
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I do get antsy if I haven't got lines to learn, a character to play. But yes, I do take holidays.