- I could do with more mobbing, particularly from women. I'd like to be treated like Ricky Martin.
- I just don't believe in love at first sight any more, even though I've based my whole career on the concept. In my experience, power, money and influence always attract the opposite sex. It's something that I've always exploited - with good results.
- Basically, my life is so boring, it's embarrassing.
- [on being called "posh" by the media] I do, kind of, want to ram their microphones down their patronizing throats.
- I don't particularly like babies. I don't mind them for about four minutes. That's my max. After that I can't quite see what everyone's fussing about.
- I watch an awful lot of women's sport recently. I don't know what that means about me. I watch the women's golf. I watch the women's tennis very much.
- I've got four houses in my street. I live in two and the others are empty. I'll buy more as they come up, because I think it would be great to have the entire street.
- Women are frightening. If you get to 41 as a man, you're quite battle-scarred.
- [his thoughts of actress Julia Roberts] Very big-mouthed! Literally, physically, she has a very big mouth. It is a very big mouth. When I was kissing her I was aware of a faint echo.
- [on his screen fight with Colin Firth in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004)] It was the same approach as the first one, which was just to make sure that it was as crap as we wanted it to be. The key is to stop the stunt coordinator from coming in to make it look like a film fight. We just wanted it to be two pathetic Englishmen scared of each other, throwing their handbags at each other, basically.
- I think film acting's just a miserable experience. It's so long and so boring and so difficult to get right so that what you need above all is incredible willpower and strength of mind.
- [on playing "the bad guy" in films] Now, I quite like it. For years I sat in these interviews and everyone said, "You're always Mister Nice Guy, why don't you ever play someone nasty?" So in fact it's been a relief to be . . . for the real me to come out more on camera. I don't have any particular burning desire to go back to being cuddly. Not really.
- [on why he is conducting a crusade to regulate standards for the British press] It certainly isn't a craving for attention. I trudge on to 'Newsnight' or 'Question Time', like Saddam to the scaffold. We beg them to use our professors, but they won't.
- [on Rupert Murdoch calling him a "scumbag"] Harsh. But I see where he's coming from.
- I'm often asked why I keep banging on about the press. Am I a lefty? I'm not. I'm not a righty either. I drift.
- [on Elton John's marriage to his husband David Furnish] Groom Groom - Britain races into the future. Congrats Elton and David. Congrats enlightened UK.
- [on Doctor Who (2005)] I was offered the role of the Doctor a few years back and was highly flattered. The danger with those things is that it's only when you see it on screen that you think, 'Damn, that was good, why did I say no?' But then, knowing me, I'd probably make a mess of it. I'd prefer to be a baddie. They're always more fun.
- [on his character in Paddington 2 (2017)] He's kept all his old costumes, and they sit in a secret room, around him, and he talks to them. This will be me in ten years' time.
- I frequently dream of having tea with the Queen.
- I find it hard to understand why Scorsese has never called. You know, given the natural menace I bring to the screen.
- 'The Lair of the White Worm' is quite a strange film. It's difficult to be good when you're saying lines that have been translated from Spanish to English by someone who speaks French.
- At home, I hardly ever leave London. I don't like the countryside in England.
- Most actors really love it, that's what they want to do. They burn to do it. And so they'll read a script and think, that's an interesting part. And because they love acting, that blinds them to the fact that the rest of it is pretentious nonsense, which it very often is.
- I think maybe in a way it gets worse because you come in with a real reputation and they've paid you lots of money and all that.
- I dreaded the dance scene in 'Love Actually' more than having my teeth extracted.
- I get very annoyed when people think I'm nice or diffident or a polite English gentleman. I'm a nasty piece of work, and people should know that.
- It's very true that you can be both selfless and selfish at the same time. What we tend towards, particularly in filmmaking, is this binary sort of, 'This is a good guy, this is a bad guy.' And I quite like the fact that life is a bit more complex than that.
- For any new technology there is always controversy and there always some fear associated with it. I think that's just the price of being first sometimes.
- Japanese women have always loved my films, even when no one else did. Ever since I made 'Maurice' in the 1980s, I've been getting hundreds of letter from Japanese girls. They definitely have a special place in my heart.
- I quite like Pilates now. I have a Pilates girl in every city.
- Strangely enough I'm better on a stage. I love that I feel like I blossom in front of a whole bunch of people.
- My mother was a teacher.
- The reason I turn down 99% of a hundred, I mean a thousand, scripts is because romantic comedies are often very romantic but seldom very funny.
- In 'The Sound of Music,' I was a פון Trapp daughter in a white dress with a blue satin sash, and my line was, 'I'm Brigitta. I'm 12, and all I want is a good time.' I got a laugh. And I was so delighted, I laughed, too. Sadly, that's a problem I still have - onstage, I laugh hysterically at how funny I am.
- Neither Elizabeth or I are keen to do a real-life couple on the screen. It's not very electric.
- But I just know from experience that accent wise, even if you're an accent genius, crossing the Atlantic is the hardest thing in the world either way.
- I'm really not that posh. [At school], I used to do a lot of impressions of teachers, and I got caught smoking. I was badly-behaved and pretentious.
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