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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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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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Private education can give you confidence, which is marvellous; a sense of entitlement isn't.
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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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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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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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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'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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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 wanted to work with Bryan Singer because I like his films.
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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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The trick to acting is not to show off, it's to think the thoughts of the character.
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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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I used to do a lot of comedy. I don't know what happened. I think it's my face.
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I'm not a great fiction reader. I love history. I love history and philosophy.
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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.
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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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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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My business is not to show anybody anything; my job is just to do it.
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I knew very early on that I wasn't Brad Pitt.
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My career is playing the guys who go, 'Boo.' That's what I do.
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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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You can't write a screenplay if you've been doing a zero-hours contract. Which means that the people who write drama, the people who commission dramas, and the people who direct dramas all come from a small circle of society.