David Thewlis
Restoration I did because I really loved e novel and I like Michael Hoffman, who directed it, but it wasn't a really challenging part for me. I'm not critical of the film: I just don't think I gave a very interesting performance.
It wasn't the greatest script in the world, but not many people can say they've played a wicked king in a swashbuckling Arthurian special-effects monster movie.
I met the Coens here a few years ago and they said they liked my work.
I'd only read a bit of the first book. And I just knew about all the media furor over it. But I'd not read books 2 or 3. I'd just read a bit of it. And I'd seen the films.
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.
I was still listening to the Beatles until I came here, you know.
When you do something well, this is the best job in the world.
Before Anna, I'd had a few relationships and I'm glad I've been around a bit. I know where it's gone wrong or know who are the wrong people for me and who I might be wrong for.
I'd had a relationship with a French girl, a Japanese girl, an American girl, a Filippina and she was there all the time - a Lancashire girl. I thought: 'It's a Lancashire girl I was looking for. Why didn't I realize it?'
I'd been a stepparent for about two years with a woman who had a child, and I came to realize I adored children and was good with them. So I was very happy when Anna got pregnant.
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.
It's certainly not easy having to spend a lot of time apart, and having a five-year-old child who's got to be at school. So we need to learn how to organize our time really well because for months we will be in two different countries.
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'm not one of those people who's against doing remakes.
I thought 'Charlie And The Chocolate Factory' was terrible. I'm a big fan of Johnny Depp and Tim Burton, so I don't know what went wrong with that.
The thing about 'Harry Potter' is it's great fun because of the people - I was usually with Julie Walters and Mark Williams, Brendan Gleeson, Robbie Coltrane, and the kids. Wonderful, funny, amazing people. If you're going to hang around on a set bored, you might as well do it with Julie Walters.
I've always loved writing. It was always what I wanted to do.
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.
I've been offered TV things over the years, but usually, that's about that I don't want to be away from home for that long, because it's a long time to be away your home country and my family.
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 am the sort of guy who does go to modern art shows.
I paint a bit myself. My house in Clerkenwell has a room that is done up like a big installation.
You always have to look for something beautiful wherever you go.
You can't actually be just a movie actor in Britain, because we don't make that many movies.
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.
We didn't need the Internet for Nazi Germany to happen. But I feel like there's this lack of humanity because of it.
The world is enormously dangerous and scary. I worry very much for my daughter. I'm not sure we're in control any more, and I think the Internet is partly responsible for that.
Dad worked in the same shop, behind the same counter, five or six days a week, for 38 years, and hated it.
'Naked' kind of kicked me off into the film world. It just so happens that all of the things that I have been offered have been films, and I've enjoyed the travel that goes along with that.
I usually do watch what I've done because I think it's important. I think you can learn from it and see what you thought you were doing and what ends up on the screen.
What we do is ridiculous! I think that even when what I'm doing is serious, even when I'm not turning into a werewolf. It's a silly thing to do, isn't it? It's what you do in the playground when you're kids - but actors just never stop doing it.
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 adore children. If I weren't an actor, I would be a teacher or work with small children in some way. I feel happy in their company.
Trying to keep a relationship going on the phone is disastrous.
I used to write out of angst. My writing was quite miserable, quite angry, even when it was funny. It was based on this sadness and tired emotional disdain for the world.
Playing a character who becomes a Buddhist was a great experience.
In the prepping for 'Azkaban,' I read 'Azkaban' and 'Goblet of Fire.'
Most parts I've played since 'Naked,' I can barely remember who they were, let alone repeat any lines.
I like time off. I'm not a workaholic.
I like tourists. I think it's nice to live in a town that people come from all over to visit.
I really like Los Angeles. I like the weather, the openness of it, the beach, the mountains, the desert. I find it inspiring. I get quite a lot of writing done out there.
I was interested in the idea of celebrity... some very untalented people getting very successful and making a lot of money for not a lot of work, sometimes.
The oddest things happen to me. It goes in seasons. Nothing will happen for a long time, and I miss it, and I remember how these strange coincidences used to happen to me and how amazing it was, how it made me want to believe in something. A year will go by, and then a slew of them will come along, like buses, one after another.
Alfonso Cuarón, in the rehearsals, without J.K. Rowling's knowledge, told me that [my character] was, in fact, gay. So I'd been playing a part like a gay man for quite a long time. Until it turned out that I indeed got married to Tonks. I changed my whole performance after that. Just saw it as a phase he went through.Collection: Character
I want that. I want that awful intense and serious unhappiness, cos then I might feel better, and then I might be happy.Collection: Feel Better
I'd had a relationship with a French girl, a Japanese girl, an American girl, a Filippina and she was there all the time - a Lancashire girl. I thought: 'It's a Lancashire girl I was looking for. Why didn't I realize it?Collection: Relationship
It wasnt the greatest script in the world, but not many people can say theyve played a wicked king in a swashbuckling Arthurian special-effects monster movie.Collection: Kings
I walk to Oxford Street and climb on the number 8. It's freezing and it starts to rain and it's the ugliest bus I've ever seen, rattling down the ugliest streets, in the ugliest city, in the ugliest country, in the ugliest of all possible worlds.Collection: Country
He'd been let down so often His brow was on the floor But then they found A small hole in the ground And let him down some moreCollection: Let Down