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Any actor who judges his character is a fool - for every role you play you've got to absorb that character's motives and justifications.
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Actors are agents of change. A film, a piece of theater, a piece of music, or a book can make a difference. It can change the world.
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It's a nightmare to sit and watch a film that I'm in. There's a horrible inescapability to it.
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I approach every part I'm asked to do and decide to do from exactly the same angle: who is this person, what does he want, how does he attempt to get it, and what happens to him when he doesn't get it, or if he does?
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Calling this production 'postponed' does not disguise the fact that it has been cancelled.
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I've never been able to plan my life. I just lurch from indecision to indecision.
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I think every English actor is nervous of a Newcastle accent.
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I have every sympathy for writers. It's a mystery to me what they do. I can edit. I can cross out and say, 'I'm not saying that' or, 'How about we move this to here? Wouldn't that make that bit of the story better?' But where any of it comes from is beyond me. I will never write a play or a novel.
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You can lull the paying customers as long as they get slapped.
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On the screen were some flashback shots of Daniel, Emma and Rupert from ten years ago. They were 12. I have also recently returned from New York, and while I was there, I saw Daniel singing and dancing (brilliantly) on Broadway. A lifetime seems to have passed in minutes.
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Somebody with Debbie Reynolds' features doesn't get cast as the Wicked Witch.
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Actors are actually very supportive of each other.
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When I am asked about influences, I always say I bow down to Fred Astaire, because when you look at him dancing you never look at his extremities, do you? You look at his centre. What you never see is the hours of work that went into the routines, you just see the breathtaking spirit and freedom.
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I don't play villains, I play very interesting people.
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I'm a lot less serious than people think.
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I like it when stories are left open.
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I have just returned from the dubbing studio where I spoke into a microphone as Severus Snape for absolutely the last time.
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On film you put all your energies into a single glance.
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The directors you trust the most are the ones, when you ask them a question, they've got the guts to say, 'I don't know.'
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A lot of the time I hate the theater. You think, 'I have to climb Mount Everest, again, tonight.' Oh, the theater is a scary place to be.
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If people want to know who I am, it is all in the work.
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We're dead as a species if we don't tell stories, because then we don't know who we are.
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I'm always aware of the camera and it feels like that's the audience.
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Who I am gets in the way of people looking innocently at the parts I play.