"Making a film is like going down a mine - once you've started you bid a metaphorical goodbye to the daylight and the outside world for the duration." "What I tend to go for, and what interests me, is not the hero but the coward...not the success, but the failure." [on his acting days] "I wasn't a very good actor. I wouldn't have cast myself if I'd come to see myself." "A lot of claptrap is talked about The Method as though the British actor didn't have one. It's just that we tend to be quieter about it."