Actor

You can run out of energy if you take on a lot of stuff.

George Martin looks like Santa Claus, but he's got a wonderfully disturbed mind.

I wouldn't say I'm a Method actor, but I do try to focus very deeply on what character I'm playing, and everything else goes out the window. I forget about everything. I try to get everything else out of my head.

I can't imagine doing anything except acting.

Sometimes all you need is a big leap of faith.

I'm interested in why people talk like they do. Like Boston Irish. It's so laid back. Why is that?

I'm proud of Lord of the Rings. I think it's a once in a lifetime role, and a once in a lifetime film. It was made with so much care and passion and meticulous detail and everybody was so behind it.

The stigma of movie actors doing television is gone now.

I had no intention of being an actor. I was quite good at it. I was pretty capable at other things but never any good at anything.

I go to see my kids in school plays.

I'd like to act as a fair, easy-going, kind man at some point.

My mother and father raised their eyebrows at first when I said I wanted to be an actor because I was in this industrial city. My dad had done a bit of boxing on the side, but he was a welder first and foremost. I was 17, and I said, 'I want to be an actor.' They worried it was a waste of time.

Of course I believe in love despite four divorces. There is nobody who doesn't believe in love. But marriage - that fits some people but obviously not me.

I worked with John Hurt a couple of times and learned a lot from him.

There's a wealth of literature out there which, hopefully, will be, you know, exploded in the future, and I personally find it very rewarding to be involved with classic storytelling, and sort of legendary characters.

I've been accused of being a bit too keen on my football, not least by my three ex-wives.

My days of being an absentee dad are well and truly over.

Tolkien was quite a religious man, and so is George R.R. Martin. They kind of have this epic quality about them when they write the material.

I did a film called 'Patriot Games' with Harrison Ford, and we actually shot three different versions of my death. And they settled on the third.

A common misperception of me is... that I am a tough, rough northerner, which I suppose I am really. But I'm pretty mild-mannered most of the time. It's the parts that you play I guess. I don't mind it. I'm not a tough guy. I'd like to act as a fair, easy-going, kind man at some point.