Actor

I like risky parts - abrasive characters the audience won't necessarily like.

When I did 'Amadeus,' I hadn't done a play for five years. And I was so happy doing it and felt so foolish that I hadn't done a play for such a long time that I wanted to go back and really kind of reach out for a classical career.

I think that if you get too close to the character, if you do too much historical research, you may find yourself defending your view of a character against the author's view, and I think that's terribly dangerous.

I was a huge J.M. Barrie fan as a kid, as most English children are.

You can't stay away from the theater too long.

I've worked in a few sort of 'institutional' theaters - the Royal Shakespeare, the National Theater in England - and they're hopelessly top-heavy with bureaucracy.

Kids will eat anything, won't they?

My career has evolved at its own peculiar pace. American careers are supposed to have a much more singular direction than I've been able to... stomach.

I've turned down a lot of roles to make time to record and tour.

With a sequel, you always worry for its integrity.

I'm not a conventional leading man at all and have no wish to be.

But we live in a modern world, you know, and, and also it does seem to me that if you - that whatever talents you have, it... I mean it may sound a bit absurd but I, I think it's your, absolutely your duty to resolve them, you know?

My great hero is Billie Holiday, and I've always wanted to do an album of standards with a piano-led quartet.

I still find it quite easy to find my way into a child's imagination. We're all Peter Pan ourselves in some respects. Everybody should keep some grip on childhood, even as a grownup.

Um, musicians are funnier you know, than actors on the whole.

I like dangerous directors who like dangerous actors and dangerous productions.

The people on the business side in the music business are kind of different from the theatre business. I think it's partly because there are different pressures on the industries.

In most careers, you find something you do well, and you tie an increasingly larger bow on the package.

I want to establish a wide range and play all kinds of parts. It's that sort of acting career I really respect. I like to turn a sharp left from whatever I've done before because that keeps me awake. That's why I want to be an actor - I don't want to play endless variations on one character.

I moved to L.A., because that's where they point cameras at you. And that's what I'd like them to do.