"I met Elijah Wood once, I met Peter Jackson, I met Orlando Bloom, and they're all really cool."

"I have quite a rich inner life, and I'm constantly looking for a way to express that. I haven't found it yet in acting. When you're playing a character, you're only going to find outlets for very specific parts of your inner world."

"I know it wouldn't seem like I've had a lot of failure in my career, but there are things that I regard as failures, when I look at certain performances and go, 'That's not good enough.'"

"I know me, and I know that I'm not somebody that particularly merits a lot of screaming and shouting. And there's nothing special about me as opposed to hundreds of thousands of other people everywhere."

"I've always had, like, from the age of about 11, I've had such an intolerance for bad behaviour of actors that I don't think I was ever going to be that person."

"I think I'm a tiny bit like Harry 'cos I'd like to have an owl. Yeah, that's the tiny bit, actually."

"As far as I can tell, most actors' main motivation is self-doubt and neuroses."

"Ironing boards are a classic example of something I find horrible about modern society: the excitementation, for want of a better word, of mundane things."

"As much as I would love to be a person that goes to parties and has a couple of drinks and has a nice time, that doesn't work for me. I'd just rather sit at home and read, or go out to dinner with someone, or talk to someone I love, or talk to somebody that makes me laugh."

"There are two types of poets: People who write poetically about their lives, and poets that live poetically and write about it."

"That's what fame does to you. You acquire another self."

"I was in the bath at the time, and my dad came running in and said, 'Guess who they want to play Harry Potter!?' and I started to cry. It was probably the best moment of my life."

"The nerds are the ones that make the films and do loads of other really cool stuff in their life."

"I like science and I love gym. Oh, and I like art, but I'm really bad at it. I'm just a terrible drawer. I can't draw a circle. Even with a ruler, I can't draw a straight line."

"It's very rare that I get stopped or get asked for an autograph or anything - none of which I mind - but people don't really care that much."

"I'm not clumsy, I'm accident-prone!"

"For ages, in my lunch hours, I would just go round and choreograph fight scenes. For fun. So now I'm very good at being thrown around. I bounce, in the words of my friends."

"I'm quite confident, but I don't fancy myself. I don't really care about how I look."

"I haven't always been thrilled with my work. But the fear of not proving the people wrong who think you can't emerge from a franchise and do well, that's a very strong driving force."

"I think it's useful, as a famous person, to have as little separation between the perception of you and how you really are - because otherwise I'd be sitting here thinking I'm keeping secrets, and wondering when you're going to find out."

"I was fortunate enough to meet Sophie Dahl. And I'm slightly in love with Scarlett Johansson: she's just stunning. And she's bright, which is incredibly sexy."

"People tell me I look mournful. They say, 'Cheer up, Dan, it's not that bad!' Sometimes I just look into space, which freaks people out. If I was ever required to do anything other than look haunted, I could. I'm a happy person."

"That's why I don't understand why actors become arrogant and are completely unapproachable - because as an actor, the most valuable thing you can do is talk to people and hear their stories, because it'll all come in handy."

"I'm possibly a very morbid person but I think about death a lot."