Quotes

[on the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling] I went off and read the books after the audition and I read all four books in one sitting - you know - didn't wash, didn't eat, drove around with them on the steering wheel like a lunatic. I suddenly understood why my friends, who I'd thought where slightly backward, had been so addicted to these children's books. They're like crack.

Every time I make a plan, God laughs at me.

I imagine like most of us that I'd like obscene amounts of money but the people I met and worked with who have those obscene amounts of money and have obscene amounts of fame have awful lives. Really. I mean hideously compromised lives. And I can go anywhere. No one knows who I am. I can go on the tube and bus and wander through the streets. So I'm quite happy not to get the girl.

[to the producers of the stage version of "Angels in America" while auditioning for the part of "Louis"] Look, I play all these tough guys and thugs and strong, complex characters. In real life, I am a cringing, neurotic Jewish mess. Can't I for once play that on stage?

[on playing Harry H. Corbett in The Curse of Steptoe (2008)] This wasn't just a sitcom. It was like watching a five-act Ibsen (Henrik Ibsen) play. Corbett was making us laugh, but we were laughing at his pain and the hopelessness of his situation. Then there were the story lines ... politics, class, religion, sex. This wasn't what an early-1960s comedy was supposed to deal with. Everybody knows his Steptoe (Steptoe and Son (1962)) voice, but that was nothing like his real voice. He was actually raised in Wythenshawe. He had that peculiar northern thing of trying to make his accent posher than it was. A bit like Harold, really. So much of his real life mirrored Steptoe and I think Galton (Ray Galton) and Simpson (Alan Simpson) picked up on that. Unfortunately, typecasting was far more prevalent in those days. Harry H. Corbett was, without doubt, the finest actor in the country, but the more successful he was as Steptoe, the less work he was offered. He wanted to walk away, but he couldn't. He was very comfortably trapped. I've got mates who are in exactly the same situation. Starring in hugely successful shows, earning loads of money - but they can't stand their jobs. The country loved Harold Steptoe, but Corbett hated him. Really hated him.

[Who is your favourite person to work with from the Potter films?] That's just a horrible and impossible question! Every time I go back there's a triple pleasure: first to see how the leads have all changed and grown up some more, then to find out which legendary actor I get to play opposite (this time it was Gary Oldman) and finally to meet some new and fabulous director who would never have chosen me in any other circumstance.

[Will you marry me? (Just kidding.) I've been wondering what kind of music you like and who is your favorite artist?] Thanks for the offer Leah, but my wife might have something to say about that. I love lyrics so anything where I can hear the words is good with me. I've got Lily Allen and Paul Weller on my iPod at the moment, rubbing shoulders with Frank Sinatra, Bob Marley and the soundtrack from Little Shop of Horrors. Pretty eclectic. I like to warm my voice up in the dressing room and poor Lee, who's really musical, has to hear me murder some cheesy '70s pop through the wall. I apologize everyday, and everyday he pretends it's not killing him, which it obviously is. I also listen to a couple of singer/songwriters I came across in California quite a lot: Craig Jerris and Judith Owen because not only are they fabulous, but I can picture the people they're singing about.

[How did you find the courage and perseverance to stick with the unpredictable career of an actor?] I have neither courage nor perseverance. What I do have is luck; so when I started out I got some jobs and then, because of those I got some more and... cut to 20 years later. Although I've had some relatively lengthy periods out of work, they were mostly through choice - turning things down that I thought were rotten or that I'd be rotten in - and I've never had to think about doing something else. I never wanted to be an actor and I still don't really know why I'm doing it but I'm a bit too old to do anything else now and, anyway, it's quite enjoyable while I'm waiting for inspiration.

[I would be interested to know how you manage to stay in shape and juggle work and family commitments. Also are you still "on the wagon" smoking-wise?] I'm what they call a shape-shifter in Harry Potter-land. Staying in shape's a nightmare with two small kids because mealtimes are always at the wrong time and you have to eat whatever they don't. Add to that the late nights on film and TV sets and the continuous rolling buffet of fat and sugar on offer to keep you awake and perky and my total lack of willpower and you have a lethal combination. Luckily, the knowledge that I'm likely to have to get my kit off on screen combined with my fierce competitive nature make me run after balls regularly - on a tennis court, football pitch or chasing dogs round the dog park. I haven't smoked for a long time now - except on screen; Chris in Scars smoked nonstop and that was really hard for me: first to start and then to stop.

[Have you ever worried about being typecast as a villain?] I'm far more worried about not working. As long as I'm offered the chance to do plenty of other things as well, I'm more than happy to chew up the scenery occasionally. The only thing that's difficult is when I'm offered the chance to play a badly written villain, or a virtual repeat of something I've done before and the money's good, or the location's fabulous or, more likely, I'm sick of staying at home and getting under my wife's heels. I just try to keep myself interested and hopefully what interests me will interest an audience.

[The quintessential question, Jason darling, is: boxers or briefs?] That's for me to know and you, hopefully, to never find out. Since I never buy any clothes - I hate the process - it's most likely to be whatever I've nicked from the last job.

After The Patriot for instance, I'd been offered the same part, virtually, over and over again. But I thought The Patriot was a great version of it and I didn't take any of the stupid, badly written bad guys afterwards. I don't blame Hollywood or directors for not offering me new and different challenges all the time because they don't know what I can do. (Peter Pan director) PJ (Hogan) I'll always be grateful to because he offered me a chance to do something that I hadn't done before.

[on playing Captain Hook in Peter Pan] It was scary (fighting with Jeremy Sumpter, who played Peter Pan). He's a nutter because he always wanted to do things for real all the time. And also I had to learn to swordfight with my left hand and I'm right-handed, so you know it was very difficult for me. Took me months to get up to speed.

[In a 2013 interview in the (London) Independent, discussing antisemitism he encountered in his youth] There were constantly people beating us up or smashing windows. If you were ever, say, on a Jewish holiday, identifiably Jewish, there was lots of violence around. But particularly when I was 16, in 1979, the National Front were really taking hold, there were leaflets at school, and Sieg Heiling and people goose-stepping down the road and coming after us.

I've played a lot of gay parts, and it's a barrier for me to get over snogging men. But Daniel [Craig] was so easy... he's such a sexy man.

[on one film disappointment] When I was in (PJ Hogan's 2003 film) Peter Pan, it was going to be gigantic. I was told it would change my life. 'Be careful', they said; 'make sure you've got the right people in place'. Then it came out, and it was a catastrophic flop. It killed my film career stone dead for a while.

[on Peter Pan (2003)]: Actually, it's the only version of 'Peter Pan' that's ever been made about a little girl who's hitting puberty, and her mum and dad go, 'That's it now, you're gonna be a woman.' So she dreams of a world in which she won't have to grow up. P. J. made that book into a film, no one else has.