Quotes from Ian McShane

You don't particularly want to stay close to your ex-wife. Or why would she be your ex-wife?

I don't think that acting is as youth-obsessed as the general culture. In acting, as you get older, you get better, and the parts you get improve, too. But that's only true for a man, not a woman.

I never wanted a life of having a nice house, driving around, settling down.

Seventy years old! How did that happen? I was part of the generation that wasn't going to die.

You set paths for yourself, but as you get older, things change.

Acting's boring.

Bosses will tell you they are looking for something different but they're not, actually.

My daughter said, 'I don't think granddad really suits you.'

Blackbeard is probably the most infamous pirate who ever lived. He's one of those characters for which most of your work is done before you start.

What 'Deadwood' did was to talk about how capitalism started, how civilised society came in, and how that brought its own problems.

As long as the cheques carry on coming in, and I'm enjoying my work, I shall continue acting.

Do you follow American politics? They hate Obama. Hate him. He's a black man. That's what it is: it's racist. This guy is no bleeding-heart liberal. He's a centrist.

I come from the liberal side of thinking: Better one guilty man should walk free than one innocent man found guilty.

I don't remember my first two marriages... the details are very sketchy.

I had a teacher at school who said, 'We are going to do a play next year, and you're in it.' He said, 'You should try out for the Royal Academy as an actor.' I did and got in. I was 17. My mum wasn't too happy, but it worked out OK.

Whenever there was a pause on the 'Hercules' set, everybody whipped their Blackberries out of their skirts - 'Are you texting the King of Thrace to tell them we're on our way?'

My second marriage was to a girl I met in Manchester, kept a long-distance relationship going for two years, then we got married... disaster.

When you've done a show that's as successful as 'Lovejoy' was, it hangs around for a few years, and people know you from it. I escaped the shadow when I stopped 'Lovejoy' by not doing any television for four years.

Robert Fisk is my hero. In America, they think he's a terrorist.

If I'd had the choice when I was 14, and someone had said to me, 'You can either be a footballer or an actor,' I'd have said: 'Well, can't I be a footballing actor?'

Theater is a dance of a different kind, a dance of rawness and characters stripped down.

I think the reason 'Sexy Beast' was so good was it wasn't just another run-of-the-mill gangster film; it was a love story.

Acting is great therapy - you get to do things you'd normally get arrested for.

What's great about acting is you can let all your wackiness hang out while you work.