Quotes from James Nesbitt

It's hard to make a film in Britain. It's hard to raise money. The best stuff that is shot on film in Britain is usually shot on film for television.

I'm not strong-willed enough or unkind enough... or maybe simply not wise enough to tell a journalist that a subject is out of bounds.

I'd be a very easy therapist's subject.

I started a French degree at university, but packed it in when I realised I really wanted to be an actor.

Brain surgery is a fairly aggressive process. There's a lot to get through. There's the beautiful, delicate shaving first, which is really lovely. There's a wonderful ceremony of putting all the covers on, so only the little bit you're operating on is revealed. But once they make the incision and tear the skin back, the drill comes out.

I'm Ulster Presbyterian. We understand the need to work hard from an early age.

Brain surgeons are dealing with the very last thread of life, and they have to be very confident, but I think they tend to remember their failures rather than their successes, and that must be very hard. Who do you share that failure with? That's why their personal lives are often disastrous.

I lived a dual life, and when my dual life exploded, I began to feel much happier.

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.

People don't watch TV only to relate to stuff. They also watch to find out about a world they can't relate to.

I spend my money on holidays and eating out, and it allows me to be generous.

It's ridiculous, but it's horrible going bald. Anyone who says it isn't is lying.

Richard Armitage is very good at the old horse riding because of course he did it in 'Robin Hood,' so he's very good at that.

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.

You can get a bit world-weary in this job, and 'The Passion' reminded me of what a fantastic job acting is and how lucky I am to be doing it.

What I discovered all over Ireland is that people living simple lives by the sea or in the remote countryside seem a lot calmer than city folk with their iPads and their Android phones.

Improvising political dialogue is not easy.

Perhaps not being very self-aware in the past masked depression. I think I was confused. I think I was immature. I think I probably was quite depressed.

Theatres, along with the likes of the Ulster Orchestra, for example, are the cultural heartbeats of our towns and cities, and without them, we are much poorer for it.

If you are going to tell a story about a child going missing, it's going to have similarities with a real life child going missing.

I don't know a single person who doesn't regret the things that they did to hurt their parents, or the things they didn't say to them.

I have three older sisters who, when we were children, used to hold me down on a bad day and put make-up all over me, so I've had an aversion to it all my life and hate sitting down in the make-up chair.

Acting is something you didn't do in Ireland.

I grew up loving women and without misogyny, rancour or prejudice, totally loved and loving. And no matter what has happened since, I don't think I have treated women in my life very badly.