Quote

There are some tremendous actors in the U.K. who have been knighted, and I've spent much of my life admiring many of them, like Laurence Olivier. So it's very flattering to be in their company.

There are some tremendous actors in the U.K. who have been knighted, and I've spent much of my life admiring many of them, like Laurence Olivier. So it's very flattering to be in their company. But you also end up in the company of people you don't admire, including some rather dodgy politicians.

I don't generally believe in people being knighted.

To be knighted, that would be amazing. I remember Alex Ferguson from Man Utd got it and Steve Redgrave - to be in the same category as them is amazing.

I started being interested in acting when I heard the voices of Sir Laurence Olivier and Sir John Gielgud and Sir Alec Guinness. I've had the great privilege of working with Sir Derek Jacobi and Sir Anthony Hopkins. These are people who inspire the work that I do.

Years ago I met Richard Burton in Port Talbot, my home town, and afterwards he passed in his car with his wife, and I thought, 'I want to get out and become like him'. Not because of Wales, because I love Wales, but because I was so limited as a child at school and so bereft and lonely, and I thought becoming an actor would do that.

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.

Everyone the world over talks about British actors and British talent and I think that's because we were trained - until now - in theatre.

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 is a whole bunch of great British actors of my age who aren't film stars or theatre actors; they're very much both.