Ralph fiennes

I can't go and shoot people in the back of the head because It's a kids' movie, which is actually quite a good test because you haven't got the overt threat of a knife in the face.

There's a challenge to playing these fantasy figures because they are fantasy figures. You have to enter into this sort of imaginative world of the writer.

Being an actor means asking people to look at you. I guess I accept that. But it's a profession in which the job is to show another world and other people. You may access it through bits of yourself,...

There is a tension in relationships between wanting to return to the womb, but also wanting to be free. Because sometimes the woman's attentions can be overly maternal, and you want to go, 'Ahhhh!'

I think Shakespeare is like a dialect. If I heard a broad Scots accent, I'd probably struggle at first but then I'd start to look for words I recognise and I'd get the gist. I think Shakespeare is...

I never studied anything about film technique in school. Eventually, I realized that cinema and theater are not so different: from the gut to the heart to the head of a character is the same journey...

I couldn't get as big as a bodybuilder. I tried to put on as much weight in the right places as I could. My weightlifting was impressive for me, but not for some of the guys I see down at the gym.

There's a lot of people who feel there's a tabloid journalist who had it coming.

You dread that there will be real problems during filming.

And although I've been very fortunate in the film work that's come my way, I need to get back to the stage. If I'm away for a maximum of two years, I feel something's wrong.