Ian McShane

“Do you follow American politics? They hate Obama. Hate him. He's a black man. That's what it is: it's racist. This guy is no bleeding-heart liberal. He's a centrist.”

“Bosses will tell you they are looking for something different but they're not, actually.”

“The bad boys get all the best lines.”

“I think the reason 'Sexy Beast' was so good was it wasn't just another run-of-the-mill gangster film; it was a love story.”

“I had a teacher at school who said, 'We are going to do a play next year, and you're in it.' He said, 'You should try out for the Royal Academy as an actor.' I did and got in. I was 17. My mum wasn't too happy, but it worked out OK.”

“Theater is a dance of a different kind, a dance of rawness and characters stripped down.”

“My dad was a football player - a soccer player - for Manchester United, and I loved playing football, but I also happened to be the guy in class who was pretty good at sight reading. My teacher gave me scripts, and I was very comfortable.”

“There's only two kinds of actors - good ones and bad ones... and lucky ones and unlucky ones.”

“I don't remember my first two marriages... the details are very sketchy.”

“I don't want to be in 'Expendables 5.' You can keep those kind of movies.”

“Every actor has to love and loathe the character he plays.”

“I don't think that acting is as youth-obsessed as the general culture. In acting, as you get older, you get better, and the parts you get improve, too. But that's only true for a man, not a woman.”

“'Lovejoy' has a special place in my heart because it was through my efforts that the series first came to the screen.”

“When you've done a show that's as successful as 'Lovejoy' was, it hangs around for a few years, and people know you from it. I escaped the shadow when I stopped 'Lovejoy' by not doing any television for four years.”

“I'm from the disco era where everybody thought they were John Travolta... What song is going to get me on the dance floor? Anything from 'Saturday Night Fever,' and you're up there like a demon.”

“I'm a child of the Sixties.”

“The bad boy: always more fun.”

“I would like to be in a really big, successful film - boffo, spectacular, $500 million!”

“I've never hankered for any role.”

“I never wanted a life of having a nice house, driving around, settling down.”