Eddie Marsan Quotes
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With a face like mine, I'm never going to play a character who conquers the universe, I'm going to play characters who are subject to forces bearing down on them. My career's based on how we are rather than how we wish we were - they get the good-looking boys in for that kind of role.
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When you're the youngest and the only boy, you get spoilt but you get told you're spoilt so you don't get to enjoy it very much. I was the only man in the house because my parents divorced and my dad moved away when I was 13.
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I wasn't that hard. I wasn't that tough. I wasn't that funny – I looked like me.
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The characters in 'Ray Donovan' are not very articulate - we're the worst Irish family you could ever live next to in L.A.
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I see all these people talking about acting as a great spiritual thing. It's not. There's no great mystery to acting. It's a very simple thing to do, but you have to work hard at it. It's about asking questions and using your imagination.
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I went swimming the other day and my wife was watching and she said, 'You know, it's funny, it's when you've got no clothes on, no one recognizes you.' I said, 'What are you saying? That I should do more love scenes?'
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Major film stars tend to do a film and then have a couple of months off. I'm not a major film star; I'm a jobbing actor.
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Private education can give you confidence, which is marvellous; a sense of entitlement isn't.
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As children, we all hold on to the myth of omnipotence. Comics are successful because kids identify with superheroes. They'll read a book or watch a TV programme and say, 'I'm that guy.' And that guy is always the one in control.
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I'm like a mechanic. If you break down and phone the AA, they'll come to you whether it's raining or snowing. That's what an actor should do.
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Mr. Norrell is like a librarian trying to do magic... That's the story of my career, really. I stand next to good looking men and make them look better!
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I don't look like Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise. When you put me on the screen, the women don't want to make love to me, and the men don't want to be me.
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I had a good job as a printer in the East End. Before the unions destroyed it, that job was very lucrative.
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I'm not a great fiction reader. I love history. I love history and philosophy.
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I wanted to work with Bryan Singer because I like his films.
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The trick to acting is not to show off, it's to think the thoughts of the character.
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You turn up on set, and somebody who has come out of Oxford, has done a BBC course, is telling you how to act. You think, 'Do me a favour. Go and make a coffee.'
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The hardest thing to do and most miserable films are comedies.
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When I was doing fringe theatre, my ambition was to do repertory. When I got to rep it was to do national theatre; then it was t,o get a couple of parts in television. I never had this great desire to overreach myself. I was too busy enjoying acting. I was just obsessed with it.
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When you watch 'Ray Donovan,' you think that it's about Hollywood, about scandal, about stars, and about trying to keep secrets. That's true, but that's also just the means by which you reveal secrets of the people suffering every day life.
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I knew very early on that I wasn't Brad Pitt.
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I used to do a lot of comedy. I don't know what happened. I think it's my face.
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There's no great mystery to acting. It's a very simple thing to do but you have to work hard at it. It's about asking questions and using your imagination.
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I love Bethnal Green and where I'm from. Nothing there, especially the people, ever held me back, but I never felt that I was successful there.