I grew up with actors, so I never thought of them as anything but human - sort of horribly, inextricably human.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The actors I admire are character actors.
So many people are called but few serve as actors, you know what I mean?
I think I would not be described as a character actor in that I don't take on characteristics which are very alien to me.
Actors are actors, and there should be a complete fluidity for anyone to play anything.
I knew what kind of actor I was going to be, and I looked for inspiration to people like Alec Guinness, Cyril Cusack, Timothy Spall and Jim Broadbent. I looked at them and thought, 'They play human beings as they really are.'
I've never been one of those actors who has touted myself as a fascinating human being. I had to decide early on whether I was to be an actor or a personality.
Actors are there to represent the human condition back to itself. It's never about the actor. It's about the content. That's what I strive for in my work.
Actors ought to be larger than life. You come across quite enough ordinary, nondescript people in daily life and I don't see why you should be subjected to them on the stage too.
Nobody should expect an actor to have these wonderful ideas and concepts about the world: they pretend to be other people for a living.
My view of actors is that basically they're all harmless lunatics who'd be on the psychiatrist's couch, except that we get this sort of catharsis every six months or so, and we go and be absolutely someone else.