We lie to God in prayer if we do not rely on him afterwards.
Thank you to my wonderful actors, the triangle of man-love which is Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and me.
I think we all have blocks between us and the best version of ourselves, whether it's shyness, insecurity, anxiety, whether it's a physical block, and the story of a person overcoming that block to their best self. It's truly inspiring because I think all of us are engaged in that every day.
I feel connected to the Second World War because my father lost his father in that war. So, through my dad and the effect it had on him of losing his father young, I always felt connected to the war. It goes back years, but it still feels to me as if we're completely living in it.
I think directors can become overly infatuated by gilt and gold, and the word "lavish" and everything being magnificent.
I was always obsessed with finding truly researched images to add authenticity, out of that came something totally contemporary and modern. Research is very key to my process because over and over again, reality provides more interesting images than you could have invented.
A lot of dramas get a bad name commercially because they are unremittingly bleak.
Slalom skiers train their whole lives for like a minute and a half. We're not soccer or tennis players that can play the whole game. Once you're in the World Cup, you're physically prepared, so then ski racing almost always comes down to more mental than physical. I've been working on understanding that I've done everything that I can up until this point, and now I need to breathe and enjoy the moment, and do what I know I can do, versus trying to do more. Because you're fighting to do more, but that doesn't always work.
You have a freedom in playing the villain. You can be a lot more out there, really. And there is a joy in that. There is a joy in kind of making a zone of psychoses.
Georgia was a great place to live, but I wanted to get out because I knew the opportunities for what I was doing - stand-up comedy and eventually acting - were in Los Angeles.
It has become a commonplace that aggressiveness also often has its roots in fear. I am inclined to think that this theory has been pushed too far. [. . . ] The type of aggressiveness that is the outcome of timidity is not, I think, that which inspires great leaders; the great leaders, I should say, have an exceptional self-confidence which is not only on the surface, but penetrates deep into the subconscious.