James Nesbitt

“My early ambitions were the same as they are now - to play for Manchester United. I was, and still am, football mad.”

“Northern Ireland has treated me well, you know?”

“While I've never 'phoned in' a performance, I think I have given some performances where I could have been a bit braver.”

“I'm no pin-up.”

“It's easier to act in your own accent.”

“No one wanted to own Bloody Sunday.”

“My nightmare is that I don't want to be OK.”

“My wife would say I'm more Hyde than Jekyll!”

“You don't learn charm. It's not something that you can acquire. I have used it much in my life with great success, but it's not necessarily what makes me an actor. It became a very easy label to attach to me. It also feels a bit dismissive. People go, 'You're so lovely and charming', but it's a wee bit, 'That's all you are.'”

“If you are a Northern Irish actor, maybe subconsciously more than consciously, you do have an instinctive responsibility at some point to tackle the recent history of where we have come from. It's not only a responsibility, but a privilege.”

“I didn't much like Las Vegas. The noise of the place and the whole 24-hour, 'let's play the slot machines all night' culture of the place just left me cold.”

“I'm an actor, learning lines and saying them in the right order.”

“I've got a history in my life of difficult times.”

“When I was growing up, Belfast City Hall was surrounded by security, and we had no access to it. But now, people come in and out of it all the time. On a nice day, office workers and students sit on the lawn outside and have lunch. It's great to see how Northern Ireland has changed. To be part of that is fantastic.”

“Although surgeons know how to deal with bits of the brain, they don't really know how it works.”

“There will only ever be 13 dwarves in 'The Hobbit' - and I was one of them. If I had my time again, would I do it? Yeah, I would.”

“Who am I to pass judgment? Judgment has been passed on me, but I adhere to, 'Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.'”

“Unification is less important than the fact Ireland is now conflict-free.”

“As I told Piers Morgan, 'Catholics have confession, whereas Northern Irish Protestants only have interviews.'”

“I think often there is great rivalry between neurosurgeons and cardiac surgeons. I think I maybe have a bit of bias with neurosurgeons' opinion that nothing tops neurosurgery! But that makes for a quite interesting conflict between the two.”