Brendan Gleeson

“I worked with Steven Spielberg on 'AI,' and his level of preparation was extraordinary. He told me there was a time at the beginning when he was a bit more spontaneous and went over budget, and it absolutely wrecked his head. When you look at the power and assuredness of his movies, it makes sense that he works out so much in advance.”

“Everyone's waiting for the seventh book, and looking at each other saying, 'Oh, I wonder will I be in the running?”

“Look at the Coen brothers. All their minor characters are as interesting as their protagonists. If the smaller characters are well-written, the whole world of the film becomes enriched. It's not the size of the thing, but the detail.”

“You can channel a lot within a comic framework, and I think 'The Guard' had a lot going on outside of the comedy, which is satisfying.”

“I'm aware now over the last 5 or 10 years that when you do an accent, you really have to kind of get down to the nitty gritty and go into the phonetics of it, if necessary. Find out not just the sounds but the rhythms and the music - or lack thereof - in a particular accent.”

“Actors will always tell you it's more fun playing bad guys. A lot of the time, it's criminals who are the people who don't care. There's something extraordinarily seductive about the guy who doesn't care, and to play that guy is terribly empowering, because you don't have to worry about the consequences of your actions.”

“I tend to look for the good in bad people and the bad in good people, to make them human. 'Cause I don't think that people generally are that black and white. Maybe in movie-land they can be... but that isn't necessarily all there is.”

“What I voice, I voice though my art, if that's not too vainglorious a word. But I don't think it is.”

“I'd never had any problem finding inspiration; Ireland was always just there, you know? All this richness of culture was there to tap into.”