Quotes from David Thewlis

It's not my ambition to direct lots of films. I think if I direct one film in my whole life, why rush it?

I paint a bit myself. My house in Clerkenwell has a room that is done up like a big installation.

The world is enormously dangerous and scary. I worry very much for my daughter. I'm not sure we're in control any more, and I think the Internet is partly responsible for that.

I like tourists. I think it's nice to live in a town that people come from all over to visit.

I was still listening to the Beatles until I came here, you know.

Well I am afraid that I am going to die, because I have just put a down payment on a house.

Restoration I did because I really loved e novel and I like Michael Hoffman, who directed it, but it wasn't a really challenging part for me. I'm not critical of the film: I just don't think I gave a very interesting performance.

I had such a nice time making it, and I can't wait to make the fifth one. The whole crew were just really, really lovely. All the costume people, the make-up girls, the kids - even my driver.

I've never been that bothered about doing stage or television. I just love doing films. With theatre, it goes on night after night.

You can't actually be just a movie actor in Britain, because we don't make that many movies.

I'm much more Buddhist. I mean, I'm not a Buddhist. I should be so lucky to be a Buddhist, a real Buddhist, but of all the things I investigated, that seems to make the most sense to me.

The making of 'Naked' was an absolutely phenomenal, mind-bending experience. That film was life-changing and put my career onto a whole different level.

I was interested in the idea of celebrity... some very untalented people getting very successful and making a lot of money for not a lot of work, sometimes.

I can remember, after I started doing films, my mum began going to more arthouse films. She went to see 'Edward Scissorhands' and phoned me up and said: 'What was that all about? He had scissors on his hands.' Good question. I think she should review films on Channel 4.

People sometimes say, 'Why do you choose a part?' and sometimes it's not that I chose it but that that was the one that came along.

I got hooked to American news like a great TV season. It plays like fiction. I would come home from work, and I would put it on, and I would stay up until 2 in the morning watching it and get up in the morning and watch it.

When I'm sat in the pub with my mates, they've got their stories: Richard and Tracy have split up, they went to Arsenal and this fight broke out... My anecdotes are like, 'I was in this bar, and Michelle Pfeiffer rang, and I had wax in my ear, so I couldn't hear what she was saying...'

I kind of drifted into acting through a series of coincidences.

After Cannes, my agent told me to get the next flight to LA. He was right. I had a part in 'Prime Suspect 3' by the end of the week.

I'd had a relationship with a French girl, a Japanese girl, an American girl, a Filippina and she was there all the time - a Lancashire girl. I thought: 'It's a Lancashire girl I was looking for. Why didn't I realize it?'

It wasn't a good idea to work on 'Naked' in the first months of a marriage. I was living apart from my wife in a flat overflowing with books I was reading for the part.

I really like Los Angeles. I like the weather, the openness of it, the beach, the mountains, the desert. I find it inspiring. I get quite a lot of writing done out there.

I don't think Alfonso was a big expert on Potter either. He was feeling his way through it more than I was.

'Harry Potter' is very nice because it's very easy to make children happy. All you have to do is have your photograph taken with them.