"There are no acting challenges in a good script, only in a bad script." "All good actors are easy to work with. It's the ones that aren't very good who tend to be very difficult." "I'm temperamentally suited to the business of acting. I'm quite fatalistic. If it's not happening, it's not happening, and there's very little you can do." "Surprise is perhaps the storyteller's greatest weapon." [on deciding which roles to take]: "You just follow your nose. You ask those simple really instinctive questions like you know: Can I shine in this role?, Can I do this role better than anybody in the world?, Is there something in it that I recognize?... Its really not to do with the money, or the director, or the other members of the cast. The first simple thing is: Am I going to enjoy playing this character?... Its a purely instinctive decision." "Because when you decide to do a script, you don't think, "Oh, I haven't a clue how to do that. "Ooh, let's do that." I don't... No. If I read something and think, "I can do that," that's the job I'll do. If I look at something and think, "How would I begin to do that?" I'm not an actor who responds well to a challenge."