In my career, I thought I've never wanted to get anywhere in particular. I just wanted to work with interesting people on interesting projects.

You're always more critical of your own country. People will talk about stuff in Britain, and I'll go: 'Aw, it's not that bad,' but at home, it's different. It's inside you.

Fine-tuning a play like 'Uncle Vanya,' which is already well-known to the people playing it, is not so much a verbal exercise as it is a visceral one.

When you go to a concert, part of being there is that you're all hearing the same thing. It's about being in a crowd. If you go to a gig and there are two people there, then it's not the same thing.

People who say, 'There's nothing to fear from spiders' have clearly never been to Australia.

I think when something is apolitical and it gets politicised, then it's incredibly disappointing.

I think marriage is all about timing. Getting married is insanity; I mean, it's a risk - who knows if you're going to be together forever? But you both say, 'We're going to take this chance, in the same spirit.

I think the downside of the Internet is that speaking-or writing-has become the point in and of itself.

Sometimes I think it's so good not to win those things. And, anyway, who wants to peak when they're 28?

I think the terrifying thing is you see all these people who go to the same cosmetic surgeon, and they end up, after a while, looking like everyone.

I think when you have a character as richly drawn, I suppose then there are subconscious, mental notes that you've made.

I think we should stop drinking bottled water. There's no need to be drinking it if you're living in western communities.

I don't consciously think of how parenthood has changed me but I'm sure it must have.

“I'm always without sleep. I've got two kids. I understand sleep deprivation on a profound level.”

If you only exercise your soloist muscles, the other muscles quickly atrophy.

For me, I think the bigger something is, the more difficult it is to make it nimble and fleet afoot.”

“I don't have a sense of entitlement or that I deserve this. You'd be surprised at the lack of competition between nominees - I think a lot of it's imposed from the outside. Can I have my champagne now?”

“Working with Woody [Allen] is like an emotional strip club without the cash.”

“Moreover, in my own way, I have discerned in pure Being the involution of all forms. As felt, pure Being may be indeterminate, but as conceived reflectively it includes all determinations: so that when deployed into the realm of essence, infinite or indeterminate Being truly contains entertainment for all eternity.”

“The brute necessity of believing something so long as life lasts does not justify any belief in particular.”

“History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren’t there.”

“Free government works well in proportion as government is superfluous.”

“For what is most dreaded is not the agony of dying, nor yet the strange impossibility that when we do not exist we should suffer for not existing. What is dreaded is the defeat of a present will directed upon life and its various undertakings.”

“faith in the intellect...is the only faith yet sanctioned by its fruits”