Quote

Britain produces great actors because they learn on stage so know their stuff when they get on a movie set.

I've found a lot of the thinking in America is that a lot of people become actors to become famous. At least from my experience, I have a dozen or so British friends who are actors, and if you look at their body of work, and they'll go do theatre, and they'll go do this and this. They work, and they're always honing and trying to be better.

British actors behave like Europeans; they are also extremely well trained.

Britain has enormous amount of talent, as we've seen from the BAFTAs. It's all here, and it has to be allowed to flourish.

The strength of British theatre should be that these actors in their middle years know what they're doing and are good at it. Not rich, not famous, but making a living.

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.

I don't care to analyze acting. On the other hand there is a fascination because distributors are putting out British films. You get films here with great performances you'll never see again. Why compare. We should go after the businessmen.

I believe that a large part of the training in the regional theaters is in imitation of the British style of acting. The British orientation is textual; they start from the language and work toward the character.

British actors come at acting from a slightly different angle. Because a lot of the films are cast out there, they are so used to the angle from which the Americans, and certainly the young guys from L.A., are coming at it, that I think it's interesting for them to find these English actors who maybe approach acting from a different place.