Quotes

I've never been interested in playing good guys. I'm always attracted to dangerous characters. Those roles are usually far more interesting and I hold no fears about doing them. With my character in Croupier (1998), you're never really sure where he's coming from. He's not really a good guy or a bad guy. But people generally aren't, are they?

The sexiest part of the body is the eyes. Corny, but that's what I believe. They're what connect us as human beings.

Theatre uses a different energy. It's like going to the gym and having a vigorous workout. But every few years is enough because I love filming. I am a real film animal.

When I was 10 or 11, I played the Artful Dodger in a school production of 'Oliver. From that point forward, I said I wanted to be an actor. Nobody in my family took it seriously, but I saw no other path. I was a cocky little kid. This one teacher said: 'You're a working-class kid from Coventry. What do you know?'

Theater is like exercise. I feel it's healthy. But I don't love it as much as movies. A bad experience in the theater can be so depressing. You've got to do it every night, even if the production is not working.

The lighter stuff has got to be really well written for me, or it just doesn't get me going. There's something to play if there's conflict going on. Whatever that conflict is, that's where drama is; if the character is grappling with something you've got something to play, there's layers to it. And when that isn't there it's ... less interesting.

[Talking about Daniel Craig]: "I think when Craig first took the (James Bond) part he got a pretty rough ride, which to a certain extent is inevitable because there are so many different people who have so many different ideas about something like that. You are never going to please everybody. The thing that is really exciting is that he is a proper actor. He is not shallow or posing, they have cast a really serious actor and I think that when the film comes out everyone will see what a great choice he was".

Bond was the best thing that never happened to me. I was never in the running but the more I said so, the more people thought I had it in the bag. What's so funny about it all is my career in Britain was in really bad shape at the time, but my agents pretty much built me a new one in America by playing up all the Bond stories. All I had to do was keep on telling people I was never going to be Bond. I'd like to think I made it on talent, but it's really just dumb luck. If I hadn't worn that tux in Croupier (1998), I'd still be begging for the parts Robson Green turned down on cop shows.

I don't "do" emotion. Emotions are overrated. I'm more interested in creating a presence.

(On Bond) It's easy to keep saying no to a role you're not being offered. If they really had offered? I don't know. It's possible I would have said yes. It's possible. But they never asked so we'll never really know.

I've heard people say I have a dull and monotonous voice, but the truth is that I put all my effort into communicating to the audience via my eyes. An actor can say so much with their eyes. I would have loved to have been an actor in the days of silent movies. Sounding interesting disinterests me. Looking interesting is another matter entirely.

I got in a cab in Glasgow years ago and this quite surly cabdriver says to me, 'You're that actor, aren't you? You get paid to lie, don't you? That's what actors are, aren't they? Professional bullsh***ers.' It had quite an effect on me. I f***ing get paid to lie. . . . I walked out of there and I spent a bit of time thinking about it. And then I realized I think it's the opposite: It's an opportunity to tell the truth. I try to do that in everything I do. And whether you like a movie I'm in or not, I want you to believe me. More than admire me or think I was brilliantly skillful, I want you to believe me.

[on bad scripts he is reading] These are films that are funded and ready to go - expensive movies. You're amazed that people are funding them. I start to think it's me, that I'm being too choosy.

(On his plans for Catweazle (1970)) Making the film (The Boys Are Back (2009)) made me realise I've not made many films my own children can see, and I want them to see what their old man does for a living. When I was a kid, Catweazle (1970) was the bees' knees, the best thing on TV. I didn't want to be Cedric or the other kid, I wanted to grow up to be just like Catweazle. It's my dream role. You could say my whole career has just been a rehearsal for Catweazle. It (the character's look) is a bit of a problem with the Lancombe contract, but if it comes to choice between them, it'll have to be Catweazle. I hope it doesn't come to that! Maybe they can do before and after adverts - with Catweazle (1970) the before!

That's the best place to be, both excited and scared. What's the worst thing that can happen? The worst thing that can happen is that I'll be bad. I've been bad before - I'll be bad again.

I like the high-wire act, playing someone who is not entirely straightforward, not something easy, palatable.

I have to drag Sarah-Jane to a premiere. Her ultimate present, which I bought her a few years ago, was a Volkswagen Caravan van. She's into arts and crafts, and hanging with the kids, and going camping. She's very unimpressed by what I do. The girls have very high status in my house. I'm the git in the family.

Every time I go away, [daughter] Hannah gives me what I call her Roger Moore face.

I talked about it all through the pregnancy, but I didn't do anything about it. I had smoked since I was fuckin' 14. I always used to say to myself, I'm going to die of lung cancer. That's the choice I'm making. And then when [my wife] Sarah-Jane was pregnant, I couldn't think about anything else. I just had this image in my head of breathing smoke in a baby's face. You just think about it going into their little lungs. And when Hannah was born, I stopped. Hard. Dead.