Jeremy Irons

“I think there's still an appetite among a certain audience to see intelligent movies that have real emotion in them.”

“Nowhere are emissions monitored constantly. So the truth is that the real quantity of dioxin emissions from incineration remains unknown.”

“My feeling, of course, is that it's ludicrous to try to prove God's existence by science. God has nothing to do with science. God has all to do with soul, and who can explain that?”

“And whenever I'm in a situation where I'm wearing the same as 600 other people and doing the same thing as 600 other people, looking back, I always found ways to make myself different, whether it be having a red lining inside of my jacket, having red shoes, it hasn't changed.”

“I wouldn't call myself a method actor, but I have my own method. I do my own research. I come up with a background for the character. I'm not a club man. I don't like isms. I've never really studied Stanislavski.”

“The older I get, the less busy I like to be.”

“I have developed a life which seems to need a relatively high income.”

“I had people when I was younger trying to feel me up. Older men. I just told them to get lost.”

“I keep working with fairly inexperienced directors. You know, if you have a good crew, a good cameraman, you know, I know what I'm doing. If the actors know what they're doing, we can all pull together, and it works.”

“When I'm not working, I don't mix with actors, really. I have about two or three friends from theater school, and we call each other and meet. But in the main, no. I'm more happy with musicians or horse riders or sailors.”

“A comic book and a straight drama all have the same elements. If you're playing tragedy, you have to be aware of the comedy; if you're playing comedy, you have to be aware of the tragedy. If you're playing comic book, you have to be aware of the reality.”

“I think nobody since has written such extraordinary work as Shakespeare writes. The characters he writes are full of inconsistencies, which is a great human quality - I mean, we're all very inconsistent in the way we behave.”

“I looked at the circus, and I looked at the carnival, at the fun fair. But I looked at sleeping accommodations and decided I was too middle class to put up with that! So then I joined the theater and found I could choose my own bedroom. I loved the atmosphere. I loved that we worked till midnight and didn't start till ten.”

“Commerce seems to be covering every aspect of our lives now. Which me, because I'm a romantic, is sad for me to say.”

“I think all of society should be a think-tank where you throw ideas about. I had hoped the Internet would help. Actually, what it has done is make everybody go schtum. They're attacked for saying anything. So they say nothing.”

“Actors often behave like children, and so we're taken for children. I want to be grown up.”

“We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they're called memories. Some take us forward, they're called dreams.”

“I envy children who know that they're going to become doctors, know they're going to go into the forces or whatever. I think choice is one of the hardest things, but that's what I try to give my children, to say you can do anything.”

“I was the youngest. The yule lamb. The one who always got away without doing the washing up. My sister was four years older, and my brother six years.”

“I do what I do because I like doing it. I'm well paid for it. I get far too much adulation compared with what it's worth.”