I'm afraid I don't have a very pragmatic or unromantic view of props. I don't imbue them with any great sense of mystery or anything.

I've got an overly developed sense of what selling out is, and I of course worry about it too much.

On the surface, you think you wouldn't have to think at all about being asked to play Bilbo in 'The Hobbit.' It's not prison; it's a good gig. But you know it's going to take a long time, and it does. There are times when you thought: 'Gee, I've not seen my house for months.'

I like uncertainty in roles, and I like uncertainty in art, really.

What makes Shakespeare eternal is his grasp of psychology. He knew how to nail stuff about us as human beings.

As soon as a job finishes, I am done with it. When I'm really, really enjoying the job, I love the job, I want it to end because it's supposed to.

We all know that people who've never been on a film set think it's way more glamorous than the people who work on them.

My default state is wariness.

I don't get cast as the guy who steps off a yacht in a white linen suit with a martini.

With superheroes and comics and fantasy and sci-fi being absolutely the popular currency in cinema, it's like people have said in endless magazines, it's the revenge of the geeks and all that. There's some truth in that.

To my mind there are not enough things that show the Nazis as human, as smart people, charismatic people, who are not inhuman naturally. But who are able to be fantastically inhuman when they choose to be.

I like things that are simple, such as an alarm clock.

I would wear a full-length cape if I could get away with it - I do love a good swirl in a fog.

I didn't audition for 'Fargo.' It was a straight offer.

The reason I've never gone for pilot season even as a younger actor, and wouldn't entertain that sort of thing now, is the idea of signing a piece of paper that binds me for six or seven years.

'Sherlock' is one of the biggest things I will do, ever - we could never have predicted that level of insanity around the series.

If you want your film to be instantly green-lit, your first approach is not to go to a relatively unknown English actor. They're not going to throw millions of dollars at you for that.

Acting is the only thing I'm even vaguely good at and acting is something that I think I do know about.

I like being called 'Mr. Freeman' occasionally.

I have a very extreme state of mind. Things are very black or very white.

Why does everyone have to pretend to be stupid and not know long words?

I am a fan of the Coen brothers. I'm not a fanatic. I'm a big admirer. They create unique worlds, and there is a real atmosphere to their films. Not everyone can get that. That's a massive part of their appeal: you can recognise them. Like all the great directors or artists, you know it when you see it.

I grew up in the suburbs, so I remember arriving at Waterloo and seeing Big Ben and the coloured lights on top of the Southbank Centre and thinking, 'Wow!'

I love that pre-mod jazz look of the late Fifties, the Steve McQueen style that influenced the British modernists.

If I could get bands to come and play in my house, I'd like that.

I've got a stag weekend coming up and I've said I'm not doing anything more than a few drinks. I won't have it. I'll go home and watch Antiques Roadshow.

Most people have a passive relationship with music and clothes, with culture. But music was my first contact with anything creative. Music is it, as far as I'm concerned.

People misunderstand me.

This isn't meant to make me sound interesting and rock 'n' roll, but I wouldn't want to live with me a lot of the time.

You could say I'm a mod, but with a small 'm'; I don't wear a parka, but I do question what I wear and what I listen to, which is what it's all about.

Most actors are either a shower of bloody scruffs or think they should dress like Hamlet off stage.

Being a mod is more of a sensibility than a style.

I only really watch my own films, I don't watch any other films and I don't particularly like any other actors.

I can spot someone with similar fashion sense to me a mile off.

I love a good suit.

When I wear jeans I want to look like a man, not a child.

I was probably cool around the end of 2002.

I'm not posh or common, I'm in between.

My mum was Labour-voting, but wanted us to know we were important. Basically, everyone's equal, but you, my children, are a bit better.

I don't think it was a surprise that I ended up as an actor, and it was anything but a disappointment.

I've always got my eye on my deathbed.

There are still things technically about films that I think are a mystery to me and I want to remain a mystery. I don't particularly want to know what everyone's job is because I've got lines to learn.

I've got no anti-America or anti-Hollywood kick, it's just that I never wanted to go and kick my heels around L.A. for six months hoping something would happen.

There is nothing far-fetched about disappointment as a subject for comedy. It's something we are all too familiar with.

Comedy can't be about continuous success.

I look like the man in the moon.

I love home. I'd rather be at home than anywhere else.

I like out, I like the outside world.

I buy DVDs. I don't really buy CDs unless they're for other people.

I hate the fact that so much of our life is computerised rather than mechanised.