Playing a character who becomes a Buddhist was a great experience.

You become judged entirely on your ability to bring in the dollars, and the fact that none of the films I did was a huge hit became significant.

I see people around me with very unhappy love lives, who may have held out for that perfect somebody. And the failure to achieve that brings along a lot of bitterness which is very unattractive; therefore they're probably less likely to achieve it.

I had no idea how one became an actor. I didn't know things such as drama schools existed. It all just sort of happened accidentally.

It's not the easiest thing to have two actors in a family.

You always have to look for something beautiful wherever you go.

The making of 'Naked' was an absolutely phenomenal, mind-bending experience. That film was life-changing and put my career onto a whole different level.

Yeah, well that's the best thing about it, I think, is knowing kids and kids getting mental when they know you're in it. Any kid you meet and anyone I know tells the kid you're in it and they get short of breath.

After Cannes, my agent told me to get the next flight to LA. He was right. I had a part in 'Prime Suspect 3' by the end of the week.

I started doing the big Hollywood stuff, and I realised, 'Oh, there's no rehearsal at all; you just turn up on the set, and sometimes you haven't even met the other actor, or the woman who's playing your wife, and you're suddenly in bed with them.'

I had grown up in a toy shop in Blackpool and then moved to London to do an acting course.

I met the Coens here a few years ago and they said they liked my work.

And it was only released in London last week, so when I go back to England Monday or whatever, I am expecting heaps of adulation. I'm hoping there is. If that doesn't happen I will be disappointed.

You can't actually be just a movie actor in Britain, because we don't make that many movies.

In 'Seven Years In Tibet,' I played a Buddhist. But I'm not religious at all, really.

I was still listening to the Beatles until I came here, you know.

Publishing a novel was such a proud thing for me. When I was a kid, I used to say to my mum and dad, 'I'm going to write a book. You'll see.' So when I did ,and it was published, and people liked it, it was great.

Everybody knows someone like that: wonderful, attractive people full of passion and ideals. You envy them, but you know there's a dark side, which is brutal and cruel and violent. That dark side informs what's wonderful about them, and the passion and rage inform the darkness; they're inseparable.

Well I am afraid that I am going to die, because I have just put a down payment on a house.

I enjoy things that are so far away from me; that's why, when I play things that are a little bit closer to me, I get really bored. When it's something that's the antithesis of what I am, there's much more to lose yourself in.

I've always loved writing. It was always what I wanted to do.

I can remember, after I started doing films, my mum began going to more arthouse films. She went to see 'Edward Scissorhands' and phoned me up and said: 'What was that all about? He had scissors on his hands.' Good question. I think she should review films on Channel 4.

I could, of course, have written about the film world and the jealousy there and the frequent belief that others don't have talent. But, for some reason, it just struck me to write about art.

I've always tended to write comedy, but I'd hate to just write some kind of sitcom or a lighthearted series of jokes and slapstick. I wanted to talk about some deeper things within the comedy.