Stuntwork... once, I've really only done one thing, which is take a punch and transport myself into the air onto a mat.
Ciaran Hinds
Sometimes, there's not an honest engagement of Ireland in Hollywood movies.
When I was young I read 'L'Etranger' by Camus, and it made me aware of the strangeness of life.
Grief is exhausting.
Christianity has its own superstition, anyway: Why you turn three times, what this saint means, why you pray to the patron saint of lost causes, why you go this way or that way.
I've worked a lot with Noah Baumbach, and he doesn't make it easy to like his characters, but the stories are funny and witty and there's an edge to that kind of humanity.
I don't have a motorcar, so I've got to know and be fairly fond of the buses.
You know, Christianity has its own superstition anyway: Why you turn three times, what this saint means, why you pray to the patron saint of lost causes, why you go this way or that way.
My soul is still Irish.
It's so tough to get movies made in Ireland anymore. A whole generation of Irish filmmakers doesn't have the resources to get a movie made.
I never saw myself as being a cop on TV.
I come from theatre and I always go back every couple of years.
My feet always danced to Irish traditional music, but I was very glad to get out of the North of Ireland in the mid-Seventies when it was really closed and tight and relentlessly unforgiving.
You get to an age when you lose people close to you.
I do believe as human beings we are a great mass of contradictions.
I'm not a comic person at all. It never reached me in the north of Ireland, in the '60s and '70s growing up. We used to get stupid comics like 'The Topper' and 'The Beezer,' things like that.
Casting is very, very important.
We've seen a lot of dirty politics in Ireland.
No nation can claim, 'We are an uncorrupt nation, therefore we will tell you what the morals of democracy are.'
I float from one project to another project, so you miss people and you don't see them for years.
I know I don't go looking for directors. I always wonder why they chose me.
I don't use the word 'artists' lightly.
I'll tell you, being on set on 'Harry Potter' was nerve-wracking. It was surreal to be in a room with those three kids, all of whom know exactly what they're doing.
If you're venturing into territory that is slightly operatic, it all has to be done so carefully.
I never saw myself as being a cop on TV. I come from theatre, and I always go back every couple of years.
When you find somebody who doesn't give and take, you go, 'Remind me never to work with you again.'
I've never traveled to promote anything I've been in. I've only been to about two or three premieres. The way I work, I do bits, and then I'm off to something else, whether it's theater or another project.
Grief is exhausting. When you learn - maybe through my age or experience - trying to harness the energy, whatever it is, muted energy or a concentration to find yourself in a place? You try to use it for when it's really necessary and can arrive.
Most of the work that I have done for the American Hollywood things have not been in Hollywood. The studios are going out in Europe or around the place working.
The joy of just being involved in something, of being part of a big process, just as a human being, it's nice to be part of people who are in the same enterprise, heading for the same goal, rather than, 'Oh this is all about me and my role. The story's about me.'
For all the acting you can do, the actual soul of someone does somehow permeate through their work.
I've got a wonky nose. Is it classical, is it not? That's what's hard work, getting down into the nitty-gritty of who are the human beings behind the front of what they present?
I'd never really been in a series, where you see a man at different points and perspectives in his life. Usually it's a film, where I'm playing a character who just comes in and offers something up.
I've got a fairly low profile - I go and do me shopping when I need to!
You try to work with the director and your fellow actors to get somewhere, but other people are the judge of whether you hit that note right.
I'd love to get into some comedy, but people keep saying, 'You're not funny!' And I say, 'Well, fair enough.' I have done comedy on stage.
In good comedy, the structure comes from truth and that weird eye that looks at the way life is.
That's why Tennessee Williams was a great writer. Poetically, dramatically, it was fantastic stuff. And with the landscape, the losers in life populating it. His short stories have got rhythm, something musical about them.
I don't hold much of care for 3D. I think it's a passing fad. It came and went in the '60s. I don't see what it adds to the story.
To be quite honest. I have seen a few things in 3D, and it didn't involve me anymore than when I saw something in 2D.
When a play is really cooking, there's nothing like it.
My father was a GP; my mother was a teacher and amateur actress. My father was a bit of a storyteller, but the acting influence must have been from her - yes, put it down to my mother.
I don't think I'm very fashionable. I drink a fair amount of Barry's Tea, from Cork - but might that be fashionable? I don't know.
