"Unlike writers or painters, we don't sit down in front of a blank canvas and say, 'How do I start? Where do I start?' We're given the springboard of the text, a plane ticket, told to report to Alabama, and there's a group of people all ready to make a film and it's a marvelous life."

“It's true that old actors don't die, their parts get smaller. You're less likely to get the part, many parts, if you're playing people your age as opposed to people who are younger. There are fewer parts around.”

“I don't think that we necessarily lie. I mean, we make our living by pretending that we're someone else. I don't tell tall tales. I always tell the truth.”

“My dad was great. He was very droll, very dry. The first time that he came to London when I was in the theatre and my name was in lights for the very first time and we had the same name, and he passed the theatre with me on the way, he was going to see a matinee and me, and my mother and he passed the theatre, and I said, 'Look,' and he looked up at my name in lights, and stood there for five minutes, and I'm going, 'I want to have lunch and get back for the matinee,' and I'm with my mother, and he still stood there and so, I went back to get him and he just said, 'I never thought that I'd see my name in lights.'”

“It seems to me a long way to go just to sit in a non-drinking, non-smoking environment on the offchance your name is called. … It's as if you are entered into a race you don't particularly want to run in. All the hoops you have to jump through on these occasions: it's not my favourite occupation. Walking around in the spotlight having to be me is not something I'm particularly comfortable with or desire. I'd sooner pretend to be someone else.”

“To be a character who feels a deep emotion, one must go into the memory's vault and mix in a sad memory from one's own life.”