My personal life is invented for me, so why bother?

I am not gadgety at all. It's not that I'm appalled by technology, but I've taken my time acquiring any of it.

Very often, actors have to face being rejected time and again, and we must remember that the red carpet lasts just a minute.

More than any other super-hero, 'Spider-Man' presents us with something very local in its ethics. It's not messianic. It's far more tangible.

There's two kinds of rock n' roll casualty: the one that has huge success and adoration, and then suddenly it stops. Or there's when you're in a band: it is all-consuming, so then you have the dream of that, and then the dream's taken away from you even before it happens.

I'm a real magpie when it comes to music; it's all random, and there's no pattern to what I like.

I do find real life a bit overwhelming sometimes. I'm totally chaotic.

Shyness is invariably a suppression of something. It's almost a fear of what you're capable of.

I've done a lot of Shakespeare onstage, and I'm not convinced that the Earl of Oxford was the author of all those works, but I am convinced that the Stratfordian William Shakespeare was not. My feeling is that it was an amalgamation of many writers, in the same way that most films are a collaborative endeavor.

Acting is a tough, difficult job with long unsociable hours, although it can be a brilliant job, too. I don't want to complain too much, as nurses, farmers and teachers are out working long hours.

When you act, you've got to be like a poet or a musician. It's not about evidence before court. It's not a forensic subject. It's poetry; it's a completely different place.

As a Welsh speaker, I'm very conscious of how activism can effect real change.

I go to work, and I work very hard. I'm loyal, generous, true, kind, fair - all those boxes are ticked. I'm going to Heaven.

I'm a sporadic reader. I have moments when I can't stop... then I kind of forget that I can read. But then I go, 'Oh God, yeah, books!'

What was extraordinary about Occupy London was that it was a village with a louder voice than one of the biggest cities of the world.

Edward Curtis was a photographer in the late 19th century who tried to document the rapidly disappearing Native Americans. He assembled a canon of work which, today, is exemplary and invaluable.

I'll move back to Wales if and when I have children. I want them to speak the language I speak, but I love living in London. It's my favourite city in the whole world. I love it because it's not England, it's London.

There is no such thing as a criminal life. Life is life, and life is criminalized. No one ever, in the history of life, has chosen a criminal life. No one has ever said, 'I want to be a criminal.' No one ever has done that.

I'm always flabbergasted and overwhelmed by the audience a film reaches.

Film and stage are very different; I don't necessarily prefer one over the other. Every few years, I get a big itch to go back to the theater. To learn humility, to learn bravery and to remind yourself that the pistons that drive your craft are working on full power. And to remind yourself how badly paid actors can be.

The older I get, I'm really reminded how important the arts are to our wellbeing as a society.

The strange thing is, if I was speaking to drama students about the thing that you should do if you're lucky enough to know or to meet the character that you're playing, I'd say, 'It's obvious: you quiz them diligently about their experience.'

As an actor, our very palette is one of imagination. So it is a walk onto an empty space and then imagine the world beyond it is what we do.

I've had the longest mid-life crisis ever.