Robert Carlyle

“I loved cinema while growing up and, for the longest time, wanted to be a director.”

“I want to keep audiences off balance, so they don't know who I am or how to take me. If I duck and weave, as Frank Bruno might say, I'll have a longer shelf life.”

“I used to be a rabid reader, but now it's scripts or nothing - network television is quite relentless, and you can't drop the ball.”

“Every actor I think has got their own number of takes that they like, you know. Some actors like to go all day, you know on the one scene and some actors want to take two takes. I personally like four.”

“I rant and rave about noise pollution.”

“In troubled times the last thing you want to do is to stick your money into a film. It's such a gamble.”

“Vancouver's a very child friendly city, there's... no doubt about that.”

“My first love is art, and I see a lot of things in an artistic way.”

“I've always taken my love of children from my father. He was a children magnet. Suddenly, having my first child hit home what my dad went through.”

“The darker the character, the more interesting.”

“I was 16 when I was in a band, for about 10 minutes. I went off and did acting after that. So it was a wee moment for me when I sang.”

“I do tend to divide my childhood into darkness and light, and the first seven years were certainly the darkness.”

“I hate the word 'hippy.'”

“I've really enjoyed my work in television, but the problem for me is the turnover of directors every week.”

“I don't take a great deal of interest in party politics. Social politics interests me a great deal more.”

“I just don't like the whole Hollywood thing.”

“Acting is probably the greatest therapy in the world. You can get a lot stuff out of you on the set so you don't have to take it home with you at night. It's the stuff between the lines, the empty space between those lines which is interesting.”

“If there's anything you want to ask your parents, ask them before they go, because once they go, they're gone.”

“Anyone that knows me knows what I'm about, and I'm very much a British actor, a European actor.”

“The thing I miss the most about Scotland is the football.”