The reason I turn down 99% of a hundred, I mean a thousand, scripts is because romantic comedies are often very romantic but seldom very funny.

Well, you know I have an office, my film offices. So I know that syndrome. I fancy offices, so there must be something wrong with me. Even the window cleaner intrigues me. It's a very sexy environment.

When I think about actors I know, I'd much rather hear about who they're shagging than what film they're doing next.

With 2 movies opening this summer, I have no relaxing time at all. Whatever I have is spent in a drunken stupor.

I was fat-shamed the other day on a British newspaper. The headline was 'Four Bellies and a Turkey Neck.' They weren't wrong. I looked shocking.

I don't want to see the end of popular print journalism.

I slightly lost my enthusiasm for most acting, but I've done some little bits and pieces - curiosities.

My laziness is really profound. I'm really interested in where it comes from - it almost feels chemical. And we've all got ADD now, short attention span and all that.

But when you're a celebrity, you discover that you're no longer the pursuer, but the one being pursued. That's one of the disappointments I have had since becoming a single man.

And I particularly like the whole thing of being boss. Boss and employee... It's the slave quality that I find very alluring.

I'm very unrelaxed doing a newspaper interview.

I'm quite proud of some of the films I've done, but less for the acting than for the fact that they're unpretentious and entertaining. I'm proud of having made unpretentious choices.

I quite like Pilates now. I have a Pilates girl in every city.

I have no doubt that I'd be a marvelous father. Maybe not when they're tiny, but when they're a little bit older, I think I'd be rather good.

I look at life and I see some very happy relationships, but I also see the vast majority as not being that happy.

I couldn't put my hand on my heart and say I think that being in a relationship is a natural state for a human being.

I don't particularly like babies. I don't mind them for about four minutes. That's my max. After that I can't quite see what everyone's fussing about.

I had Courtney Love's left bosom out of her dress on my plate in front of me. It was extraordinary. I didn't know where to look.

Women are frightening. If you get to 41 as a man, you're quite battle-scarred.

Basically, my life is so boring, it's embarrassing.

I frequently dream of having tea with the Queen.

Brexit was a fantastic example of a nation shooting itself full in the face.

I just don't believe in love at first sight anymore, even though I've based my whole career on the concept. In my experience, power, money and influence always attract the opposite sex. It's something that I've always exploited - with good results.

My contemporary art collection began with just needing to put things on the wall. I was looking around my Victorian house thinking, 'What would be the coolest is contemporary art - it will make me look young and interesting.' I'm more than 80 percent skeptical of the whole thing.

The truth is, I'd never seen a Cary Grant film. Since then I have watched his stuff and it's astounding, but I don't see any similarity between us. Except for the fact that I'm told he used to wear ladies' underwear, which is something I also do.

It's very true that you can be both selfless and selfish at the same time. What we tend towards, particularly in filmmaking, is this binary sort of, 'This is a good guy, this is a bad guy.' And I quite like the fact that life is a bit more complex than that.

'Notting Hill?' Does that poke fun at being British? Maybe it does. In 'Mickey Blue Eyes,' that's kind of the point: the clash of worlds, the unlikely combo of a respectable Englishman and a mob guy. If you take out the Britishness, you don't really have much.

If you have a smothering parent, the effect it can apparently have on a child is to give them, in equal doses, a sense of too much self-esteem, because they are mummy's little princess or prince, and low self-esteem. It affects future relationships.

I always admire the French and the Italians who are very devoted to their marriages. They take them extremely seriously, but it is understood that there might be other visitors at 5 o'clock in the afternoon. You just never boast about. They never say anything, but that's what keeps marriages together.

I've certainly had a bad attitude to my job on many occasions. Not since 'Four Weddings and a Funeral'. I've been rather a good boy and really given it everything when I've accepted a part since then, because I've been given much better parts in films.

I don't have any particular burning desire to go back to being cuddly. Not really.

Strangely enough I'm better on a stage. I love that I feel like I blossom in front of a whole bunch of people.

The moral of filmmaking in Britain is that you will be screwed by the weather.

Plus, teaching brings home to you very fast that you actually know nothing. I didn't realize that before.

You know everyone loves to be the villain.

I get very annoyed when people think I'm nice or diffident or a polite English gentleman. I'm a nasty piece of work, and people should know that.

I think I'm rather young and sprightly, but then you see pictures of yourself and think, 'Who is that old man?' and I realise I'm not as young as I thought I was.

I'm not a hopeless romantic. I'm quite the reverse. I'm a nasty piece of work, an ego maniac.

For any new technology there is always controversy and there always some fear associated with it. I think that's just the price of being first sometimes.

A free press is the cornerstone of democracy; there is no question about that.

I've driven people mad on films that I've made - I want more takes; I want to try new lines. Then I want to interfere in the editing process, and I want to interfere in the advertising process - everything, everything. Pretty much Barbra Streisand in trousers, I am!

When I finished my degree at Oxford, I went and acted for a bit. And I was appalling. And with each part, I thought, 'Well, that's embarrassing. I'd better do one more to show people I'm not that bad.' And, in fact, instead of a taking a year, that's gone on for 35 years.

I used to pre-rehearse everything and then bring my pre-rehearsed performance to the set. Now, I'm learning to let it happen in the moment. American actors are much better at that than British actors. If I knew how to trust myself, I would have been much more relaxed. Maybe I would have less gray hairs today.

I never meant to be in romantic comedies; it's just what ended up happening. But they are tricky, in a post-1960s sexual revolution way. It was easier when you couldn't have sex scenes: everything crackled very nicely. They're not easy.

In 'The Sound of Music,' I was a von Trapp daughter in a white dress with a blue satin sash, and my line was, 'I'm Brigitta. I'm 12, and all I want is a good time.' I got a laugh. And I was so delighted, I laughed, too. Sadly, that's a problem I still have - onstage, I laugh hysterically at how funny I am.

And film acting is incredibly tedious, just by its nature. It's incredibly, mind numbingly slow.

But I just know from experience that accent wise, even if you're an accent genius, crossing the Atlantic is the hardest thing in the world either way.

I cling to the fantasy that I could have done something more creative. Like actually writing a script, or writing a book. But the awful truth is that I... probably can't!

I don't think there's much point in putting me a deep, dark, heavy, emotional film because there are people who do it so much better than I do.

I find it hard to understand why Scorsese has never called. You know, given the natural menace I bring to the screen.