Quotes from Jim Broadbent

The world would be a duller place without Moulin Rouge.

You can't be angsty all day or else it becomes a sort of pale angst.

Oh, I think I've been entirely selfish with my career. I've done what I wanted to do, and not put myself out for anyone else particularly.

In fact I'd like to go back and live in Shakespeare's London.

I think we all have a selfish gene which rises to the top, sometimes. But then we're also all capable of a sudden magnanimity.

As a young actor, I was advised to bide my time. Back then, there weren't good roles for someone like me. There were handsome leading men and character actors for smaller supporting roles. But I was told to hang in there, and it was good advice. We're all character actors now. Even a handsome man is a character actor at my age.

In today's politics, it would be good to have politicians who are more upfront about what they felt and actually not trying to bend with every breeze. They're infuriating, all of them.

I see myself as a small 'l' liberal, but not coalition liberal, necessarily.

A make-up artist I know polished her Oscar and it lost its lustre. But if you don't polish it, it doesn't tarnish.

In Hollywood films everything is tidied up at the end with clean lines and clean character definitions. It's sort of unsatisfying.

We seem to have reached the age where life stops giving us things and starts taking them away.

I haven't got a writer's discipline.

I never was a great Thatcher fan, and it wasn't a sad day in my life when she resigned.

People smile at me as if they know me. I just smile back. They probably might know me.

Fluency in even one other language would be fantastic.

I'm a child of that, the 'Bonnie and Clyde' to 'Raging Bull' period, you know. Those are the films that heightened my interest in acting and movies and everything.

I do always like to do things I haven't done before, so I'm always looking out for things in a different genre, or a different sort of character.

I never was a great Thatcher fan, and it wasn't a sad day in my life when she resigned.

I'm not that comfortable with actors receiving honours, partly because I think they ought to go to those who really help others.

Even as a child, you can recognise the innocence of Piglet or the strange adult qualities of Eeyore. You just know you are with friends and family.

I like reflecting the culture I understand best, spotting the idiosyncrasies of British people and revealing them to an audience in a way that amuses is what I find fun.

I love a really good storyline.

If you're playing any real person, live or dead, you certainly have a responsibility to produce that reputation in some way.

An Oscar clears the deck of envy and resentment. You think, 'Well, I've got that. I can relax now.'