Ian McShane
My dad was a football player - a soccer player - for Manchester United, and I loved playing football, but I also happened to be the guy in class who was pretty good at sight reading. My teacher gave me scripts, and I was very comfortable.Collection: Dad
I don't believe in the death penalty, but I understand personal vengeance.Collection: Death
Do you follow American politics? They hate Obama. Hate him. He's a black man. That's what it is: it's racist. This guy is no bleeding-heart liberal. He's a centrist.Collection: Politics
The bad boy: always more fun.
I think the reason 'Sexy Beast' was so good was it wasn't just another run-of-the-mill gangster film; it was a love story.
I don't remember my first two marriages... the details are very sketchy.
Seventy years old! How did that happen? I was part of the generation that wasn't going to die.
There's only two kinds of actors - good ones and bad ones... and lucky ones and unlucky ones.
I don't do social media.
I don't want to be in 'Expendables 5.' You can keep those kind of movies.
I come from the liberal side of thinking: Better one guilty man should walk free than one innocent man found guilty.
What you do is, you just do the gig, enjoy, get on with it, and treat the rest as horse doodle.
You don't particularly want to stay close to your ex-wife. Or why would she be your ex-wife?
You set paths for yourself, but as you get older, things change.
Acting's boring.
I mean, I'm an actor. I do what comes along.
I'm a child of the Sixties.
I had a bit of a male menopause. It started at the age of 18 and continued until I was 45.
Every actor has to love and loathe the character he plays.
Bosses will tell you they are looking for something different but they're not, actually.
As long as the cheques carry on coming in, and I'm enjoying my work, I shall continue acting.
When you're in your early 20s, you go ahead and do everything. And it's very hard to judge yourself.
Theater is a dance of a different kind, a dance of rawness and characters stripped down.
'Lovejoy' has a special place in my heart because it was through my efforts that the series first came to the screen.
What's great about acting is you can let all your wackiness hang out while you work.
The bad boys get all the best lines.
Robert Fisk is my hero. In America, they think he's a terrorist.
My second marriage was to a girl I met in Manchester, kept a long-distance relationship going for two years, then we got married... disaster.
My daughter said, 'I don't think granddad really suits you.'
I never wanted a life of having a nice house, driving around, settling down.
I would like to be in a really big, successful film - boffo, spectacular, $500 million!
Acting is great therapy - you get to do things you'd normally get arrested for.
People tweet before they think, and it becomes obsessive.
Whenever there was a pause on the 'Hercules' set, everybody whipped their Blackberries out of their skirts - 'Are you texting the King of Thrace to tell them we're on our way?'
I'm from the disco era where everybody thought they were John Travolta... What song is going to get me on the dance floor? Anything from 'Saturday Night Fever,' and you're up there like a demon.
I enjoy every role I do.
If 'Deadwood' had gone on another two years, I wouldn't have got as many movies made.
You don't know where life takes you.
What 'Deadwood' did was to talk about how capitalism started, how civilised society came in, and how that brought its own problems.
Mum and Dad were both happy for me to do what I wanted.
When you're doing a medieval show like 'Pillars,' it starts off a bit like a school play. You're all in funny costumes; you've had your coffee, and you say, 'Good morning'. Then you go on set and, if you've got good actors and directors, it takes on a life of its own.
I had a teacher at school who said, 'We are going to do a play next year, and you're in it.' He said, 'You should try out for the Royal Academy as an actor.' I did and got in. I was 17. My mum wasn't too happy, but it worked out OK.
Blackbeard is probably the most infamous pirate who ever lived. He's one of those characters for which most of your work is done before you start.
If I'd had the choice when I was 14, and someone had said to me, 'You can either be a footballer or an actor,' I'd have said: 'Well, can't I be a footballing actor?'
When you've done a show that's as successful as 'Lovejoy' was, it hangs around for a few years, and people know you from it. I escaped the shadow when I stopped 'Lovejoy' by not doing any television for four years.
I don't think that acting is as youth-obsessed as the general culture. In acting, as you get older, you get better, and the parts you get improve, too. But that's only true for a man, not a woman.
I've never hankered for any role.
The shrimp was lousy and the champagne tasted like water [at the Golden GlobesCollection: Water