Denis Lawson

“My wife is a lovely Scotswoman called Karen.”

“I rather like contemporary art.”

“This is the best thing that happens to me all night - a pint of cold Guinness.”

“Scotland is extraordinary as a location, the light is amazing, for instance on the west coast.”

“I see 'Jekyll' as a very scary comedy thriller, partly because Hyde is violent and frightening as a character but at the same time he's very funny - and that's quite an achievement.”

“I've done a lot of musical theatre, but I equate 'Mr. Cinders' a lot with why I became an actor.”

“I was approached by Disney to reprise my role but I wasn't interested. The movies are sure to be brilliant but I don't want to be in them. I've spent the past 20 years talking about the last movies and I'm bored with it. I don't want to spend the next 20 talking about 'Star Wars.'”

“What's it like to have my trousers pulled down? It's not as awful as it seems. Doing that kind of thing with an actress like Judith Paris, who pulls them down, is easy, because she is very professional about it.”

“When I was a young actor and working in London, I would pop home to see my sister, and Ewan would always be intrigued about what I'd been doing. I think he found my shoulder-length hair and pink, flared jeans glamorous, which they were anything but.”

“I've always felt a very strong affinity with Jewish people. Over the years I find I've become very friendly with certain people I've worked with - actors, producers, whatever - and then two or three years later I discover they're Jewish.”

“I never thought that I was intrinsically interesting.”

“You just wear the clothes, you don't let the clothes wear you.”

“When I was very small, when I was five or six, that's what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a song and dance man. Then I got a lot of inspiration from going to visit my grandparents in Glasgow, where I'd go to see variety. That made me want to do it as well.”

“In the '80s, to get a contemporary Scot who was smart, sexy and funny was very unusual.”

“'Local Hero' was probably the most enjoyable job I've ever done then or since. It's had a very long shelf life.”

“What I've always liked as an actor is to do a lot of different kinds of things. I've done musicals, stage, TV and lots of different styles of work.”

“Way back at the beginning, I went to see George Lucas when he first came to London for 'Star Wars.' I met him months before they started, and he didn't ask me to do the picture at all. But the actor whom he had employed to play Wedge didn't work out for some reason.”

“I've always been interested in Jewish culture, but never had a chance to dip into it.”

“The way the show was conceived originally and developed, has always had good writing at the heart of it, it's very difficult to be good with bad writing. 'New Tricks' has that with the right level of humor running through the series, along with the investigations.”

“I always enjoy the scenes with Dennis Waterman, particularly when we're playing comedy, we're always finding stuff together and he's very immediate.”