Jared Harris
The scariest monsters are human beings and what we will do to each other.
My father was a Catholic, but my mother wasn't. She had to do that weird deal you do as a Catholic - they deign to sanction your marriage and you have to bring your children up as Catholics.
I think you always learn something in every character you play onstage, either personally or creatively.
If you don't look like Rupert Graves or Hugh Grant, they'll have you playing the gardener.
Very few movies I've done I regret being involved in.
You get ideas from other people all the time.
I never lost an argument and my parents assumed I would be a lawyer. They cast me in that role.
I've auditioned for normal characters. But I never get cast.
I think at some point every actor has practiced their acceptance speech while they're having a shower. It's fun.
I really wanted to get out of England.
I thought if I went somewhere where I didn't know anybody and they didn't know me I could start all over again.
I remember thinking, 'I'll audition just once and if it doesn't work out I'll never think about it ever again.'
I keep mementos from everything I've done. I've got my cab driver's license from 'Happiness.' I've got a pair of glasses and a belt buckle from playing John Lennon. I've got a pair of sunglasses from playing Andy Warhol... It's all in a box in the garage.
I used to do lots of independent films and for a while I was very content living in New York City and doing independent movies and off-Broadway theater. I loved it, I had a really good time doing that, and I worked on a lot of projects that are very dear to my heart, both plays and films.
It used to be that you could do these nuggets of a movie and it would attach itself in terms of credibility to your work and the style of work that you did, that people would be interested and curious about you and your work as an actor.
People are fascinated by evil because it's mysterious and it doesn't seem to have a rationale behind it, and the second you say that Hannibal Lector was abducted as a child and he had to eat his sister or something like that, it becomes immediately mundane. The character becomes mundane.
I've done quite a lot of dying on shows and in movies. To have a good death scene though - come on, it's brilliant. I love a good death scene!
'Mad Men' is a hard act to follow. Unless you're called Elisabeth Moss, stuff like this only comes along once in your career.
When you're acting and you need to cry, you want to put yourself in a position where you're trying not to cry, because that is generally what people try and do. They try to hold on to their emotions, they don't want to lose them.
I wasn't aware of my dad being an actor when I was young. I remember there was an Australian children's entertainer on television called Ralph Harris and when I'd say my father was an actor, kids would say, you know, 'oh, is he Ralph Harris?' And I had to say no and then they would lose interest.
I was 17, and all I wanted to do was to get away from England and the awful, boring boarding schools I'd been going to there. The last one was taught by monks, and I couldn't wait to get out.
I personally am not religious. I think, put into the wrong hands, it's incredibly dangerous. It's the reason for most of the wars that have been fought around the world, and it's pretty ridiculous when you think about what they're actually arguing over.
When you're playing someone who drinks a lot, it's not that interesting to play that condition because as soon as you know that, you got all the information you're going to get from it. It's like hitting the same note on the piano over and over again.
After 'Mad Men,' I got offered various types of uptight Englishmen, which I wasn't interested in doing. I didn't want to repeat myself.
Dad was never a Mr. Mum-type of person who'd stay at home. It was a big thing when he was home - he was a circus.
It's very hard to connect with a character when you haven't gotten a sense of who they are.
If you're involved in filmmaking, you want to challenge yourself.
Matt Weiner is an amazing writer. He's one of the best, greatest writers that's ever written for television - or just written.
Here in England, my becoming an actor was considered unimaginative.
I met Peter O'Toole for the first time at Dad's memorial service because my Dad didn't hang around with people like that when we were around. We didn't grow up with Richard Burton coming around to tea.
One of the reasons why good actors are good is that they have poor impulse control. If you put them in front of a camera, they respond as if it was actually happening, in real time, rather than doing it after several takes.
I miss 'Mad Men,' but I can't complain because I got a lot of public awareness from it, and it led on to film offers such as 'Sherlock.'
You always hope that people will fall in love with the characters you play, the way you do yourself.
I do love pink cocktails.
Pink cocktails look quite friendly. They have an umbrella in them, some sort of fruit... they look innocent, and boy, do they pack a punch.
A lot of the time, the scripts you get to read are remakes or reboots or sequels or prequels.
That period of history has always fascinated me - Greek history, Greek mythology.
Most of what I knew of George VI was from watching 'The King's Speech!'
It's odd, because 'Mad Men' was the first long-form TV thing I ever did. I'd done loads of independent movies, but after that, it was 'TV actor.' You go, 'When did that happen? Everything else has been erased?'
Male actors have to lie about their ages, too.
You can't love someone unless they love you back.
Moving outside of your comfort zone is one thing I learned from my training as an actor in England.
The person you're playing must have feelings, but if he's not able to show them, then just the subtlest rumblings and nuances can say an incredible amount.
We all have our moments where we fail to live up to a challenge.
It's important to keep auditioning. If you're auditioning for something, you're auditioning for a role that people can't see you in and you need to convince them that you're the right person.Collection: People
If you only take parts that are offered to you, you end up playing the same roles over and over again. I think it's important to keep auditioning. I think it's important to scare yourself; to take parts that are outside of your comfort zone.Collection: Thinking
Matt Weiner is an amazing writer. He's one of the best, greatest writers that's ever written for television, or just written.Collection: Television
People are fascinated by evil because its mysterious and it doesnt seem to have a rationale behind it, and the second you say that Hannibal Lector was abducted as a child and he had to eat his sister or something like that, it becomes immediately mundane. The character becomes mundane.Collection: Children
You can't really do a lot of research for being a mass manipulating, murdering super-villain.Collection: Research
When you're at drama school you spend so much time working on amazing texts and analyzing them, digging into them, and figuring out why it happens, why you are being asked to say what you're saying, and what the words mean. But then when you start working, most of the stuff would just fall apart if you subject it to that kind of scrutiny.Collection: Drama