Liam Cunningham

“I don't feel superior because I think there's no God. Actually, I would love to be able to go, 'Well, the world hasn't been kind to me, but there's something good around the corner, because the Man has a plan.' I wish I believed that. There's wonderful comfort in that.”

“I had no acting background in my family and no experience of theatre. I hadn't even been in a school play.”

“I've got loads of ideas, but I need some structure in my life. I need a mission.”

“The attraction of power is heady, addictive. And as we know from real life, it can be a disease. A horrific disease.”

“When 'Games of Thrones' is finished, I'm not one to go on about it too long and rest on one's laurels. The stuff that interests me is the work.”

“The way I view drama is life with the boring bits taken out.”

“I was walking home from school when I was about 17 with two friends, and they took a left into an electrical shop. While we were chatting away, they grabbed a couple of forms and I was handed one. My mum found it and made me fill it in. I got called for an interview, and that's how I ended up being an electrician for 11 years.”

“I wasn't interested in being an actor per se, but I liked acting, and I liked seeing what people would do.”

“Because I came to acting quite late, I kind of think one of the few attributes that I do have is that I try to be honest with the character, with the writing. I'm not a tricksy actor; I'm not exactly a scenery-chewing kind of actor.”

“The best kind of television should mess with your head.”

“If you're doing movies on a set... many times, I've shot the end of a movie in the first week of shooting. Because of locations or budgets or actors' availability.”

“I think everybody should have an interest in peace prevailing and the ridiculousness, the bestiality of war. I don't have any time for that. Anybody pulling a trigger is wrong. There is no right in war.”

“I've found that the older I get, the more spontaneous I become.”

“I live an odd existence. I dip into bizarre, very expensive worlds, and then I'm back with a bang to reality, and I put the bins out.”

“I've never done a big series like 'Game of Thrones' before. All I knew was that it was HBO, and I'd seen what they had done with 'The Sopranos' and 'The Wire.' But when I started reading the script, it was a no-brainer. Yes, yes, yes. Gold. Every time I turned the page.”

“I'd always admired Sean Connery. Even though I wonder about some of his choices, I like him even in bad movies.”

“If anyone gets arrogant about their religion, that's when the religion isn't effective anymore. Any decent religion or any decent philosophy is always about tolerance and individual freedom, not about harm.”

“I was an electrician, and I started acting as a hobby because I needed a distraction - I was bored! And only when I started did I think, 'Sheesh, what have I gotten into?' I had to go after it fully; I just had to.”

“I've always loved movies, so I tried to get into an acting school. I saw an ad for the Oscar school on the back of 'The Irish Times,' and I went along for an audition, very pragmatically, to see if I could do it or not.”

“'Game of Thrones,' people say that it's a fantasy series, but it's a hell of a lot more than that. It attracts the so-called geeks and nerds, and God bless them, they're wonderful for getting right into the show. But primarily it's about family; it's power and betrayal and jealousy. It's all those wonderful things that a fantastic drama is about.”