"I go through life thinking it's all going to end tomorrow." "I don't believe in self-promotion, really I can't be arsed." "People always say, 'That stuff you did in Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon must have been difficult....but I say, 'No, it wasn't really: that was some of the easier stuff to do,' because it was always clear and made a lot of sense. It's when things are unclear and when you don't know what you're doing- that's when things are difficult." "I always wanted to be an actor. I had the arrogance to believe I couldn't be anything else." "As far as I'm concerned, I want to be nowhere else. It's difficult in film because everybody wants to make a safe bet with roles. But if you are going to do stuff then you should be getting strong reactions. I don't want audiences to be going, 'Yeah, that's all right.'" "It's something else. I'm speechless. I've just got to step up to the plate and deal with it. I had a confidence about it but then that's because of the people around me who made me feel good about it. I knew positively on Monday. I was in Baltimore when I took the call. My first reaction was I needed a drink." "I hate handguns. Handguns are used to shoot people and as long as they are around, people will shoot each other. That's a simple fact. I've seen a bullet wound and it was a mess. It was on a shoot and it scared me. Bullets have a nasty habit of finding their target and that's what's scary about them." "I kind of feel that if you look at the track record of most Bonds - I mean Sean Connery obviously defined the part, and even he struggled for a while to get rid of the mantle. That's the pitfall and it could happen to me. I've been working so hard, for however long it is I've been doing this, to try and stick to doing stuff I totally believe in and that would be wiped out. I thought, God, this is all right: I'm doing what I want to do. And that was a huge weight off my shoulders." "I just wanted to see him make a few mistakes. I want to make the audience believe that it's all going to go wrong and then when it goes right it's much more exciting. Every day you pick up an injury and you're battered and bruised. If you're not physically fit then it's difficult to get through. I'm a Bond fan. If I go and see a Bond movie there are certain things I think should be in it. And they're there. We've got them in spades. Nobody knows more than I do how important this is, and it's my job to get it right." [On the backlash from Bond fans]: "I didn't expect this backlash. You take it in, you can't help it. I've been trying to give 110 per cent since the beginning but after all the fuss, maybe I started giving 115 per cent." "If I went onto the Internet and started looking at what some people were saying about me - which, sadly, I have done - it would drive me insane." - interview with Entertainment Weekly magazine. "They hate me. They don't think I'm right for the role. It's as simple as that. They're passionate about it, which I understand, but I do wish they'd reserve judgment." - interview with Entertainment Weekly magazine.