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I'd say that the director I had most involvement with was Alex Rockwell in 'In the Soup'. It was one of my earliest leading roles, and he gave me a lot of responsibility as an actor.

Being an actor only came about because Arnaud Desplechin, the guy who did 'Kings and Queen', had this curious idea to think that I could be an actor, but I had never acted before, and I was supposed to direct my own film!

There are many actors I admire, but I always look at people who have done a variety of roles - people such as Simon Russell Beale or Ralph Fiennes.

Roles make the actor.

Any good actor is a character actor.

I think a lot of theater actors that were great, like Walken or Glenn Close, later became film actors.

At one time I thought he wanted to be an actor. He had certain qualifications, including no money and a total lack of responsibility.

Actors are just entertainers, even the serious ones. That's all an actor is. He's like a serious Bruce Forsyth.

Arnaud Desplechin invented me as an actor. I never imagined I'd be acting in movies.

I grew up with the great Sir Laurence Olivier, and I think it's fair to say that a lot of actors of my age were influenced by his very individual vocal delivery. He was a showman who would always play to the gallery.