Quotes from Robert Carlyle

I love sci-fi because it leads in the imagination, and I always say it has the most intelligent fans in the world.

My dad was rubbish at all other aspects of his financial life, but he's pretty good at paying the rent.

I do tend to divide my childhood into darkness and light, and the first seven years were certainly the darkness.

There are a lot of things that make up a performance, a lot of technical things. It isn't always just about pulling it up from the darkest recesses of your mind or your heart. It's your experience and your observation.

Acting, the arts in general, is a magnet for the wounded of society.

I want to keep audiences off balance, so they don't know who I am or how to take me. If I duck and weave, as Frank Bruno might say, I'll have a longer shelf life.

The quality of TV drama nowadays is getting better and better. They've had to invent a new term for it: 'high-end television.'

Bullying is a terrible, terrible thing.

My dad was rubbish at all other aspects of his financial life, but he's pretty good at paying the rent.

I'd totally be attracted to a geek girl!

Acting is probably the greatest therapy in the world. You can get a lot stuff out of you on the set so you don't have to take it home with you at night. It's the stuff between the lines, the empty space between those lines which is interesting.

I rant and rave about noise pollution.

I never rehearse. Never! I think it's a waste of time.

I loved cinema while growing up and, for the longest time, wanted to be a director.

To be honest I don't think I was any great shakes as a theatre actor because everything I was doing was really small in size - intimate.

I don't want to be a luvvie actor. It took a long time for me to accept I was an actor, a professional actor, and that, actually, I make a living out of this.

Most of the time, you find that the smaller the budget, the more the project is about something substantive.

Early days, I was a bit racked , particularly when I did Hitler, for CBS . That was hellish. That stayed with me for quite a long time.

I just don't like the whole Hollywood thing.

People in Scotland appreciate homegrown talent, but it's getting harder and harder to get films made in Britain.

I like to be working and moving - the worst thing you can do to me is stick me in a room all day while you're lighting a shot. That just kills me.

Of course, I love chats with various actors about the process and how they do it. To me, if it's not on the camera, if it's not there, it's not worth it. It really just isn't worth it.

My wife was a make-up artist, and she's a total product junkie. Our bathroom is packed full of lotions and potions so I end up trying them out.

At times of the severest depression, humor is what binds people together.