Quotes

You don't step on stage to eat, you go there to be eaten.

[acting tip on a movie or play] Whatever character you play, remember they are always doing something. They are not just talking. They are alive; going through a drama in which they will go through some sort of dramatic human experience. Keywords: Alive and Experience. It is your job to make them become so. Anything you do on stage or film has a direct relation to something you have experienced in one form or another in real life. Use your imagination to exaggerate or lessen that sensation. Then, disguise it in characterization and don't forget to make lots and lots of mistakes, and look like a complete asshole. You'll do fine.

[on his nosiness] And I like people. I like to know what you're really up to. I'm a bit of a nosey busybody. Why do they do the things they do? Why are they prepared to do the things they do to get what they want? When? Where? Who?

[on his career] I mean there I was. One moment in Wandsworth Police Station on the way to Wormwood Scrubs, looking at 14 years, to this!

[to his fans] Thanks for all the wonderful paintings and drawings and writings. I am very honoured to have your support, and love you for the energy and the inspiring work and comments that you bring to the table.

[on Shinzon, his character from Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)] The character was like the Prince and the Pauper or more like Greystoke to me. He essentially has not had the same circumstances and experiences. Picard doesn't have the same baggage that Shinzon carries. So that was more freeing. He is essentially an orphan and an abused child, who becomes an emperor. There were moves that I had to play with, that did not have anything to do with Picard. The whole film is about why they are not similar. So the relationship had a ground basis to work from.

[on his Shinzon action figure] My action figure is great! It's big and bald. It's very disturbing to look at a toy and see yourself. At the same time, it's very cool.

[When asked by Simon Gage of Attitude magazine in a 2008 interview, "Have you ever had sexual relations with men?"] I'm an actor, for fuck's sake. I'm an artist. I've played with anything and anyone. But I'm not into men sexually. I love the form and the physicality but the gay sex bit does nothing for me... To me, it just doesn't compute to me now that I'm in my 30s and it doesn't do it for me and I'm done experimenting.

I love people. People are lovely creatures. I'm one myself so I love to see people happy.

I'm from East Sheen, I went to public school where I learned Latin at the age of nine, and certain expectations were made of me to go to St. Paul's, Oxbridge maybe, and all that kind of thing. And I failed systematically to meet the mark - who I am and what I should have been are two very different things.

[on working with Gary Oldman] Gary Oldman is my hero, that's it. When I went to drama school everybody used to quote him in all his films, you know State of Grace (1990) right through to Léon: The Professional (1994) or whatever. And I'd sit there really quietly and think, "No, no, you don't know. I'm more of a Gary Oldman fan than you are." [laughs] When you do an impression of him, that's sacrilege! So to work with him, for him to look me in the eye, talk to me... acknowledge I exist! Cos I'm not star struck by people, but Gary just took the wind right out of me. I'm very lucky we had to reshoot those scenes on the couch [in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)] because the first task that I did was just me watching him, because I was shocked to actually be working with him. Then for him to actually like me, and to work three times with him - cos we did Lawless (2012) afterwards. I remember saying "Would you look at the script, it's really cool", and he's like "Yeah, sure." This is crazy, you know? This is a man that I've stolen everything that I've done from, like Bronson (2008) and Stuart: A Life Backwards (2007). That's me trying to emulate what Gary's done, and to work with him makes me feel like I don't have any characters of my own. [laughs]

I want to dispel that it's all about celebrity-ism, I'm fucking bored of people looking at whose shoes are interesting and what hat is interesting. Storytelling is very important to people, it comforts them, unite us, cheers us up, we can affect change with these arts. We need to be entertained to connect.

[on getting sober in 2003] I went entirely off the rails and I'm lucky I didn't have some terrible accident or end up in prison or dead, because that's where I was going. Now I know my beast and I know how to manage it. It's like living with a 400 pound orangutan that wants to kill me. It's much more powerful than me, doesn't speak the same language and it runs around the darkness of my soul.

[2010, on quitting drugs and alcohol] I thought I'd have a little bit of a party, and I'd end up high and frightened, in places that scared me. In a blackout I could end up anywhere, I might wake up somewhere on the other side of London, or in another country or in bed with someone I didn't know, not knowing how I got there. Bleeding. This was on a daily basis and I was going to work, I didn't want to appear rock 'n' roll, I didn't want anyone to know I was out of control, but I couldn't hide it. Eventually, the body gives up, my body told me - I was completely kaput, I was lucky I didn't get hepatitis or AIDS.

[on working on Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)] I was terrified. Every day on that set, I was terrified, which worked for the character anyway. You can't hide that, the camera will pick it up. I was genuinely out of my depth. The whole thing was "How can I do this?" I took it very seriously, with my technique. I didn't have a single drink when I did it, for three months. Friday night, nothing! I'd never been so focused in my life! I couldn't get the job done otherwise. I was working 17-hour days. When I came back I just slept. I was just constantly at work. A lot of the Enterprise stuff was shot three months prior to me coming out. So they'd already shot half the movie before I turned up. So it was like walk in, straight in, out the frying pan, into the fire, get on with it.

I don't feel very manly. I don't feel rugged and strong and capable in real life, not how I imagine a man ought to be. So I seek it, to mimic it and maybe understand it, or maybe to draw it into my own reality. People who are scary, they terrify me, but I can imitate them. I'm not a fighter. I'm a petite little bourgeois boy from London. I don't fight, I mimic.

[on how he viewed his character in Locke (2013)] Responsibility has a cost, and there's no such thing as a perfection. So the argument of Ivan being a good guy or bad guy, in the same way, he's not perfect, well fucking welcome to the human race.

[on having to craft an hour and a half performance in just eight days of shooting on Locke (2013)] There's nothing too perfect [in his performance], his night is intrinsically fucked. The question is, how do you unfuck it, to the best of your ability, when inevitably it's not going to be the best of nights? So there's no point of affecting that with embellishments, it's shit.

[on watching himself on screen] I see myself as a piece of meat. And it's purely subjective. For me, I know that's the best I can do.

I'm a bit of a micromanager. In the early days, directors and producers would get nervous about me being in the video village. But to me it really is a tool, just a fucking tool. I need to make sure that my tone is working, that's not about vanity, it's about is it working? I'm not saving lives, mate, but a surgeon would look at footage and the video of other people doing surgery, or a formula one racer would watch a lap where someone took a corner, or a boxer would watch another boxer fight, I'd watch a screen and say, "Okay, that's bullshit, we've got to work on that." Some people do have a problem looking at that, they say, "Oh shit, that changes everything." But I'm 45 films deep now, I'm a bit old and ugly for it, I kind of get it, and I want to know how can I be more immersed in this world.

[on working on Locke (2013)] It's a shift for me, but it was a pleasure to play in the realm of containment. I can't describe it any other way, apart from there is so many layers to it. The car is a containment in some way, Locke is contained in his emotions. And each individual phone call, there are four walls to each relationship, which collapse or don't. So it was quite a mathematical performance.

[on This Means War (2012)] I didn't understand how you could do something which is so much fun and be so miserable doing it.

I'm not really a road dog. I'm a bit of a homeboy. But the reality is, I love what I fucking do. I love to do things I hadn't done before.

[on struggling with his life increasingly being "in the public domain"] I don't like it when people say, "Well, you should have expected that when you accepted the job as an actor." When you go to drama school, no one gives you a class on fame. Just treat people how you wish to be treated. Whether I'm married or not married, people will find out. But it's also not something I'm going to offer.

[on Brazilian films] I've seen Última Parada 174 (2008) and City of Men (2007). These films reminded me of a lot of the acting style of the '70s, very manly and energetic. It is a very similar energy to the French and South African productions. I like the passion for living that Brazil has, it is in Capoeira, on dance and in the people. By the way, I love Capoeira, but I'm terrible at it.

[on going to drama school with Michael Fassbender at Drama Centre] - Yeah, Michael Fassbender was two years above me at drama school and he was the guy. Everybody wanted to be like him - not me, because that's just the way I am and when people tell me they're going to do something, I'm like "Nah, I'll do the other." But secretly, I was like "Ah, I wish I was as good as him!" He was really, really good. He was a special student in the third year, and then he left and I didn't see him again until we did Band of Brothers (2001). I remember when we were there, he was doing the play "The Silver Tassie", a character who lost his legs in World War I, and he was spending a lot of time in a wheelchair. We only had half an hour for lunch and Michael would spend forever getting through the line in his wheelchair, so we'd all be like "Come on, Michael! Just order your food, man!" And he'd spin around in his wheelchair and yell, "Fuck off!".

[on how it must be surreal that he and Michael are considered by many to be two of the greatest actors of their generation] - It was always in the cards for Michael. It was always in the cards for him. I'm not surprised about him at all, because he was awesome. Me, I don't know how I got here! I feel like I just came from delivering pizza and I got lucky.

[on how he pulled off "acting against himself" in Legend (2015)] - I watched Sam Rockwell in Moon (2009) and thought, "He's so fucking good. I'd love to do something like that one day if it came up." As an acting challenge, it was something that I'd never done before, and it was something I wanted to do to test the muscle and see if I could pull it off. I don't think Brian [Helgeland] saw me playing both characters, and wanted to cast two different actors. But he really wanted me to play Reggie and I really wanted to play Ronnie, so we had a dinner and it culminated in, "If you give me Reggie, I'll give you Ronnie." Then we had to figure out how it was going to work out. It boils down to split screens, a bit of face replacement.

[on "what was the most difficult part of testing this new muscle" in/with Legend (2015)] - I think it was the ensemble thing - making sure everyone else on the team knows what's going on when the cameras are rolling, so that they feel that they're not left out or subject to something that's a gimmick. You don't want to let the team down, and you want to create drama. We don't want it to be all about trying to hide a gimmick - "Oh, there's Tom there... there's Tom there" - but for the audience to get immersed in the story. The hardest thing was creating that alchemy so that it didn't affect anyone else's work.

[on if he's he's become "this hulking, hard man actor?"] - It's funny in that because it is acting, and playing pretend, but I didn't see myself being synonymous with these tough-guy roles. That's not really me. I love acting. There was Bane, Warrior, Bronson, and now the Krays. I'm just surprised to be working, mate. Whatever gets me through the door.

[on his involvement with anti-poaching work and the killing of Cecil the Lion] - You know what? It's really important. And poor Cecil paid the price, ultimately. It's fascinating that it takes something like that to illuminate the subject. With ongoing anti-poaching and animal trafficking as well, it's so rife. There is so much going on in that world. And it's difficult to practice what one preaches, because I struggle with the concept of vegetarianism and veganism being the right step forward as well. The killing of animals is symptomatic of something else. There are millions of chickens killed a day, so what's the difference between a wild, exotic, beautiful animal, and an animal we've been made to eat? I'm struggling in my head about sentient beings and the merciless killing of animals when we don't really need to at all. How do you effect change and understanding in people in the killing of animals full stop? I'm struggling with that in my head because I eat meat.

[on being directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman in the play "The Long Red Road"] - He was my friend. And he became my friend, but at first I was a massive fan. And my friend wrote that play, Brett C. Leonard. I was a young actor and had just gotten out of rehab, funnily enough, and I didn't think I would act again. I was in a really shit state. The long and short of it is, after rehab, I did a play called In Arabia We'd All Be Kings, written by Stephen Adly Guirgis for the LAByrinth Theatre Company, in London. Doing that play, I met Brett C. Leonard, who introduced me to Phil, and I went in and met him for The Long Red Road, and we workshopped that for three years, and I got to know him well. He's my friend. This sounds silly, but I wanted to impress him, because he was just brilliant. And he fought for me to work in the theater because he got me my equity card on Broadway, and in Chicago. It was just beautiful to see him in his element directing. I remember one moment where I broke down onstage with him and said, "I can't do this," because it's so difficult and soul-destroying to be with Phil in a room and try and do something in front of a man who can clearly do everything that I want to do better than me no matter how hard I try. So frankly, it was like being judged by someone who had the right to judge you, being a part of the team he's on, and not wanting to let him down.

[on the Internet being fascinated by his "dog obsession"] - It's not an obsession! I love dogs. I really love them. They're always going to be around, doggies. They're special creatures. I love all animals, but I think dogs are just fantastic. Just fantastic.

[after quoting an interview where he said, "Dog spelled backwards is God."] - [laughs] Oh, did I say that? Well, that is true. But I do think there's a lot about a dog that we can learn from, and I do put the dog into a lot of my characters because a dog, if you watch them, they're so funny to watch. They speak with their eyes and their body, and I find that fascinating to observe. And another thing about the dog is you can never fool the dog into thinking that you're somebody else, so they're great bullshit monitors - especially for actors. So if you think you can transform, just try and pull off your transformation in front of your dog and I guarantee he'll see right through your greatest transformation, which is quite humbling.

[on does he "test out new characters" in front of his dogs] - I do. I rehearse in front of them, yeah. But it's very soul-destroying. They're very harsh critics, dogs. And they're very rarely impressed. [laughs]

There's two types of acting: convincing and not convincing. People describe me as intense. It's because I care. I am a pain in the ass because I care. Do I know what I'm doing? No. Do I have the best of intentions? Yes. Does that lead to hell? Sometimes.

[on being asked if he really did do 2500 push-ups a day for five weeks as preparation for the role of Charles Bronson by Interview magazine in late 2009] No, Charlie (Michael Peterson) does 2500 push-ups a day, I didn't do that. I had to put on a lot of weight as quick as possible and I only had five weeks to do it, and a lot of that was fat. I ate everything.

[on gaining weight for movie roles] I think you pay the price with any drastic physical changes. It was alright when I was younger, to put myself under that kind of duress. But I think as you get into your 40s, you have to be more mindful of the rapid training, packing on a lot of weight and getting physical, and then not having enough time to keep training because you're busy filming, so your body is swimming in two different directions at the same time. And then after the film I'm tired, and you maybe have to change your shape again and go back to your normal size for the next film. To go from one extreme to another has a cost. I haven't damaged my body, but I'm certainly a bit achier than I used to be! I kind of miss it!

Compared to Christian Bale, I've been by no means extreme in my body changes, but for what little I've done, yeah, I certainly have joints that click that probably shouldn't click, you know what I mean? And carrying my children is a little bit harder than it used to be but don't tell them!

[on Dunkirk (2017)] I think a lot of people who have some vague knowledge of Dunkirk probably think there were no RAF present but there were spitfires in the air, and one of the things Chris [Nolan] wanted to do with this film was to give them a fair representation.

[2017, when asked if he wants to play James Bond] You know, there's a saying amongst us in the fraternity of acting, and in the fellowship of my peer group, that if you talk about it you're automatically out of the race. So I can't possibly comment on that one! If I mention it, it's gone.