Quotes

It's 'Rafe', actually.

When children were introduced to Lord Voldemort, they looked suitably terrified. Which gave me great gratification.

As an actor, a part of you expects to be looked at. A part of you wants to be looked at. But when I'm playing a part, in my imagined world, I feel I'm not me. I may be using bits of me, but I love the sense that I'm being someone else.

Awards are like applause, and every actor likes to hear applause.

The process of making a film is a mad lottery. Whenever you get the feeling that you're making something special, you have to quickly squash it because you are so often proved wrong.

[on The Avengers (1998)] I think it's a badge of honor to have a real flop on your resume.

I tried not to play Voldemort over the top, and then I realized there's no other way.

I veer away from trying to understand why I act. I just know I need to do it.

The people I consider successful are so because of how they handle their responsibilities to other people, how they approach the future, people who have a full sense of the value of their life and what they want to do with it. I call people successful not because they have money or their business is doing well but because, as human beings, they have a fully developed sense of being alive and engaged in a lifetime task of collaboration with other human beings -- their mothers and fathers, their family, their friends, their loved ones, the friends who are dying, the friends who are being born.

Success.. is all about being able to extend love to people... not in a big, capital letter sense but in the everyday. Little by little, task by task, gesture by gesture, word by word.

[on the death of Natasha Richardson] I cannot imagine a world without her wit, her love, her mischief, her great, great talent and her gift for living. I loved her very much. She was a supreme friend. I shall miss her deeply.

[on filming Coriolanus (2011) in Belgrade, Serbia] I needed an important and big capital city and I didn't want it to be Rome, but any contemporary city. Given this is a modern interpretation of Shakespeare, Rome just wasn't the suitable location because Rome of today is reminiscent of a mighty state like the USA or Russia, and I wanted it to be something different. I've come to realize here in Belgrade that a lot of history is reflected through buildings. This is a capital city with a great history. I have been to Bucharest and Zagreb, but Belgrade has always been the first choice for me. Initially, I was attracted by Belgrade's spirit and later I realized this was an ideal filming location.

[on filming Coriolanus (2011) in Belgrade, Serbia] I am lucky to have a great crew from Serbia and the UK, and I've been working on the script with John Logan for almost three and a half years.

[on filming Coriolanus (2011) in Belgrade, Serbia] You really do have fantastic actors here in Serbia as well as a long theatre tradition, which is probably why it's now even stronger than that of London and I'm really flattered to be filming here.

My parents were very financially-challenged. All of us children have the memory of being told that there was no money, we have to sell this, there's no presents for Christmas. Of being in the front line of that constant worry; the atmosphere in the home always charged with anxiety. 'What do we do? What do we do?'

[on directing himself in The Invisible Woman (2013)] I've loved being able to be, as it were, the puppet master of my own performance. I love that. But you need people to give you good, constructive, critical feedback. It's crazy. It's very, very hard. I don't know how people do it consistently and do it well - like Orson Welles did, or Laurence Olivier did, Clint Eastwood does. Kevin Costner's done it. There's no question that you've got two often opposing headspaces which you have to balance.

[on doing full frontal nudity in A Bigger Splash (2015)] I liked [the nudity] because it was in the service of illustrating extreme spontaneity in Harry's character. All my nude scenes are extremely spontaneous and appropriate for the situations in which my character is. My nudity is a function of the film's plot. I knew I'd run around naked, so I had to physically prepare, to tighten the muscles.

[on A Bigger Splash (2015)] I'd never been asked to play a guy who dances and gets naked and sings karaoke! I don't believe I ever played a part like Harry... It was a very special kind of film.

When you meet women, don't pretend to be anything that you're not.

I reject the notion that there's a moral entity out there running the universe and judging us. I think there's energy, which is frightening and unpredictable. We'll never fully understand it - we're at the mercy of it - and whatever that thing is, that might be God.

My mother wrote six novels and then another book about a trip to pilgrimage centres in France. She also painted. She was her own thinker; highly individual in the way she approached just who you are. For instance, I was at grammar school and there's a reasonable pressure to get good exam results and maybe go to university. My mother would say, "If that's what you want then go for it but don't feel that the system in place is the one that you have to adhere to. Be true to yourself, follow your path and give yourself 100 per cent. Don't dabble."

I have huge anxiety attacks. I'll wake up early in the morning with my brain anxious about something and I don't even know what it is, just a general sense of profound uncertainty. It's from the unconscious, I suppose, fears about existence. A weird twilight panic. We feel we can organise our lives and have an order that we can control but really we can't; it's always paper-thin and underneath there's this lurking chaos. You think, "Fuck! This could come at me at any moment."

I used to smoke socially and bum cigarettes off people at parties; the number of packets I've bought in my life I could count on both hands. Have I smoked marijuana? Yes. I think most people have had a drag on a joint.

Once in a while I like to watch some silly comedy, usually on airplanes. That movie with Mark Wahlberg and the bear was just excellent. Ted! I'd love to do something like that.

Vodka martinis are better stirred, not shaken.

We're all defined by how we relate to each other. One of the best things about acting is that it calls on trust and transparency with a director or another actor. I've often felt happiest in ensemble situations because you have to be open. Weirdly, I find it hard in real life.

[on the backlash received by J.K. Rowling after voicing her opinion on Gender Identity] The verbal abuse directed at her is disgusting, it's appalling. I mean, I can understand a viewpoint that might be angry at what she says about women. But it's not some obscene, uber Right-wing fascist. It's just a woman saying, 'I'm a woman and I feel I'm a woman and I want to be able to say that I'm a woman.' And I understand where she's coming from. Even though I'm not a woman.

I think we didn't used to have trigger warnings. I mean, there are very disturbing scenes in "Macbeth", terrible murders and things. But I think the impact of theatre should be that you're shocked and you should be disturbed. I don't think you should be prepared for these things and when I was young, [we] never had trigger warnings for shows. Shakespeare's plays are full of murderers, full of horror ... It's the shock, the unexpected, that's what makes an actor [in] theatre so exciting.

[2024; calling for trigger warnings in theatre to be scrapped] I think we didn't use to have trigger warnings. I mean, they are very disturbing scenes in Macbeth, terrible murders and things. But I think the impact of theatre should be that you're shocked and you should be disturbed. I don't think you should be prepared for these things and when I was young, [we] never had trigger warnings for shows. Warnings for moments that could affect people physically, such as strobe effects, should remain.

[on Saul Zaentz] I have very happy memories of working with Saul. He was a wonderful presence on the set; wise, funny in a wry, laconic way. He was one of those great producers, almost of another era, where he had these passion projects he believed in and would fight tenaciously to make them. He made a lasting impression on me.