I love working with children and this young boy, Thomas Sangster, is quite a remarkable young actor. He raises your game, you know. He certainly raised mine.

I love working with children and this young boy, Thomas Sangster, is quite a remarkable young actor. He raises your game, you know. He certainly raised mine.

I've made many films and only a few times I've played real people.

People ask me if I ever feel outside the Hollywood loop, and I never do, because both of us do a lot of theatre, so it's great for New York and it's also half-way between Europe and the west coast, so it's the best of both worlds.

As you know, Hollywood loves to pigeonhole all the actors and actresses, and suddenly I got 're-pigeonholed' as an action actor.

There seems to be more opportunities for old guys like me to do a little fighting and running because the lead characters also require a bit of depth and maturity and gravitas that one is likely to acquire doing drama all those years.

I'm very much a homebody.

I've had an unbelievable life. I've been very lucky. You do create your own luck too, you know? I never forget where I'm from. Whenever I pass a building site or see somebody digging a ditch, I always think, 'That's real work.'

Well, I think they're all basically the same story. Every culture in the world has them. When you strip it down and analyze it, it's the young man or girl who goes through a trial or ordeal and hits a very low ebb but manages to get guidance from a Merlin type figure.

I do believe at the end of the night when you're with your family, the character gets hung up on the door like a coat, and is there to be taken on the next morning.

But I was very, very lucky, and it was a wake up call as far as motorbikes are concerned. I never flirted with death on the bike, but now I'm totally convinced they're death machines.

I think I'm past my due date. I just feel it.

Kinsey's quest was really for us all to be tolerant and accepting of each other.

I think if you're the son or daughter of successful actors and actresses, it's a double pressure. More is expected of you.

I'm trying to be a comedian, you know?

I don't do my own stunts, but I do my own fighting. I don't consider fighting to be a stunt.

Acting with creatures that aren't there is kind like acting with an actor who refuses to come out of his trailer. You still have to go on and do the scene.

I have no desire to play King Lear or Hamlet. I never had a grand ambition. I just followed my nose.

I was very slow in maths, geometry I actually enjoyed.

I was reared a Catholic but I think every day we ask ourselves, not consciously, what are we doing on this planet? What's it all about?

It's funny, but you get to a time in your life when you think you have all the friends you will ever have.

I loved school.

It is fun to explore these kick-butt characters.

It's easy enough to plan jobs, to plan a lot of work.

Well I think people think sex is controversial. Not always, but certainly it's something to be discussed.

I did, although I didn't read from page 1 to page 187 but I read chunks of it. I did a little bit of science when I was in the university so I was able to understand the graphs and pie charts and stuff like that. It was extremely dry.

I thought, well of course, Kinsey absolutely adored teaching. He was a wonderful teacher. So these kids really inspired me. So that was a clue I hung onto. He loved young people, he absolutely loved them. And he loved teaching them and trying to help them.

Well I was on the jury duty on the Deauville Film Festival, a few years ago.

I had done some flimflam movies, but I didn't understand what being an actor meant anymore.

When I see great boxers, it's like reading a wonderful poem.

And as the hour approached for the execution, in his own mind, Collins became both the executioner and the victim. He would pace up and down, transformed in almost a kind of exorcism when he knew he was responsible for taking someone's life.