Women are frightening. If you get to 41 as a man, you’re quite battle-scarred.

Neither Elizabeth or I are keen to do a real-life couple on the screen. It’s not very electric.

But when you’re a celebrity, you discover that you’re no longer the pursuer, but the one being pursued. That’s one of the disappointments I have had since becoming a single man.

Strangely enough I’m better on a stage. I love that I feel like I blossom in front of a whole bunch of people.

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 don’t think there’s much point in putting me a deep, dark, heavy, emotional film because there are people who do it so much better than I do.

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.

And I particularly like the whole thing of being boss. Boss and employee… It’s the slave quality that I find very alluring.

I find it hard to understand why Scorsese has never called. You know, given the natural menace I bring to the screen.

Basically, my life is so boring, it’s embarrassing.

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.

The truth is, I’d never seen a Cary Grant film. Since then I have watched his stuff and it’s astounding, but I don’t see any similarity between us. Except for the fact that I’m told he used to wear ladies’ underwear, which is something I also do.

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.

You know everyone loves to be the villain.

Women are frightening. If you get to 41 as a man, you’re quite battle-scarred.

I’m a laugh tart. I make no secret of that fact.

I had Courtney Love’s left bosom out of her dress on my plate in front of me. It was extraordinary. I didn’t know where to look.

When I think about actors I know, I’d much rather hear about who they’re shagging than what film they’re doing next.

I think that’s the whole point of Bridget Jones. It’s all about that it’s okay to fail.

The moral of filmmaking in Britain is that you will be screwed by the weather.

Well, you know I have an office, my film offices. So I know that syndrome. I fancy offices, so there must be something wrong with me. Even the window cleaner intrigues me. It’s a very sexy environment.

Plus, teaching brings home to you very fast that you actually know nothing. I didn’t realize that before.

I cling to the fantasy that I could have done something more creative. Like actually writing a script, or writing a book. But the awful truth is that I… probably can’t!

I don’t have any particular burning desire to go back to being cuddly. Not really.

With 2 movies opening this summer, I have no relaxing time at all. Whatever I have is spent in a drunken stupor.

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.

The only reason my work seems to be eclectic up to a certain period is because I was a failure as an actor.

And film acting is incredibly tedious, just by its nature. It’s incredibly, mind numbingly slow.

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.