Also, an area that interests me – and it will probably take years to state what I mean – is the period of the rise of democracy, with Tom Paine, which is around the turn of the 18th century into the 19th.

Irish people are educated not only about artistry but local history.

The energy released by it is enormous and it becomes quite addictive, the power between the audience and the actor.

So I just play the character, I play the lines.

One moment cannot be the most important.

I think America becomes more disgruntled by going to the movies and having an endlessly good time at them.

I take the theater seriously in that I loathe it, I’m bored by it.

There’s something about the Irish that is remarkable.

Acting doesn’t have to be threadbare misery all the time.

Also, an area that interests me – and it will probably take years to state what I mean – is the period of the rise of democracy, with Tom Paine, which is around the turn of the 18th century into the 19th.

Once you’ve done one style, you leave it for a while.

There is a great relief in experiencing the worst vicariously.

I would love to write the story of my upbringing in Ireland.

Theater is dangerously open to repetition. It’s exciting when you hit on a new way.

I certainly had no intention of playing a man.

I can hardly decide what plays I should be in.

The Americans are very clear, and obsessed with nouns.

A lot of Irish people perform. They perform in drawing rooms. They sing songs and they play piano.

There once was a demographic survey done to determine if money was connected to happiness and Ireland was the only place where this did not turn out to be true.

I would say the next imminent hot writers are often the writers from the decade before you were born.

I just think that things should be allowed to run their course, and not turned into a Disney ride.

My mother taught me to read.

Every generation is obsessed with the decade before they were born.

This whole tribal loyalty seems to have gone.

To be honest I live among the English and have always found them to be very honest in their business dealings. They are noble, hard-working and anxious to do the right thing. But joy eludes them, they lack the joy that the Irish have.

Theater dates very quickly.

There was no professional theater in Cork, but still I did a lot of performing.

People who are good at film have a relationship with the camera.

I find it incredibly tedious, hate that it murders itself with its own conservative pomposity.

I had a ball doing Harry Potter.

Even when they have nothing, the Irish emit a kind of happiness, a joy.

The word democracy has no meaning. Duty has gone. Only rights remain.