Quotes from Michael Sheen

I have a terrible temper. I have absolutely no problem with getting shouty or a bit physical. It's not something I'm pleased about and it doesn't happen very often, but it's very much there.

For me, what makes life enjoyable is having a shared culture and shared references.

The first thing, when I read the script, is that I need to care about what happens and feel compelled by the story and engaged by the characters. It needs to resonate with me, even if what the characters are going through is not something that I have experienced in my life. I have to feel like it has some sort of meaning to me.

I think the story of 'Alice in Wonderland' in a way is a reminder that life is frightening, it can shift on you at any moment.

I'd love to go back to Europe in the '20s and '30s, for the beginning of the Psychoanalytic Movement, and Freud and Jung, and all that was going on with discoveries in quantum physics. The whole nature of reality was changing and being challenged.

Stories have always been the things that entertain me and make me feel happy and sad and move me and give me the experience of being able to live many lives in one lifetime. It's the best thing about being alive.

I think a good story's a good story and a good character's a good character.

I would like to be taller, thinner and more rakish looking.

I don't find the life in Hollywood all that meaningful or inspiring.

When I was at drama school, I wanted to change the world, and thought I had some great wisdom to impart to people about humanity. Now that I'm older, I know enough to realise that I know nothing at all.

For a culture that has such a problem with death, we seem to deal with it in a quite bizarre way. We see people shot, killed and blown up, and we find it funny and sexy and all those things. But, the reality of it is that every day people die, and people are really sad and they grieve and they go through a really difficult process with it.

My rule of thumb is that I want to do things I'd like to go and see myself.

I find increasingly that the more extreme are the things going on in your life, the more cultural reference points fail you. More mythical reference points actually help, and you realise that's what myths are for. It's for human beings to process their experience in extremis.

While I enjoy spending time in L.A., Britain is my home.

By the time you are 30 you are still trying to make your 15-year-old self happy but you are a different person. You need to be brave and let go of that.

There are times in my career where I can see it would be helped by having a bit more of a profile, but it's not like I refuse to do interviews, no, not at all.

Hopefully, any character I play has an anchor in reality.

I think it's quite tough for people like Tom Cruise where you can never really get away from being Tom Cruise in something. You're so familiar to people and people know so much about your life.

I'm not a Tony Blair impersonator.

I love being able to play as many different characters, in as many different worlds as I possibly can. That's what I really enjoy.

I love watching Jeff Bridges act. He's brilliant.

I enjoy doing things that involve research because it's part of what I enjoy about acting.

Shakespeare esque!

A lot of children are interested in fairies, especially young girls, and Tinker Bell is the ueber-fairy. She's the pin-up girl of fairies. She's the ultimate fairy, but she's also got a mischievous spirit and she's very strong-willed. I think a lot of youngsters recognize themselves in Tinker Bell.