| # | Quote |
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| 1 | One of the odd and the weird things about filming was the number of people who came up and said, 'I knew your auntie', or 'I'm your cousin on your mother's side'. And I didn't know these people existed, because I only ever knew my father's side of the family. |
| 2 | The backdrop of my childhood seemed to be the back streets, the dark alleys and the rainy streets of those cities. I know every beat and rhythm of that life, which could be another reason for why I'm drawn often to dark gritty roles and why I wanted to show the gritty side of Glasgow in my movie. It's a landscape I know. |
| 3 | On filming in his native Glasgow: At times it was incredibly emotional. Very close to the bone. It affected me in ways that I hadn't bargained for when I agreed to do it. |
| 4 | On his father: Back in the Sixties, when I was growing up, the notion of a one-parent family - especially of a single father - didn't really exist. And for him to have walked that road and lived that life and still managed to raise me and love me as he did, was just incredible. |
| 5 | Although people always cite that role as an example of my dark side, I'm not so sure. Really, Trainspotting is a black comedy and in many ways Begbie's the funniest one in it. |
| 6 | Every actor I think has got their own number of takes that they like, you know. Some actors like to go all day, you know on the one scene and some actors want to take two takes. I personally like four. |
| 7 | I have a reputation for being an improvisational actor, which is true, but I also know what I'm doing so that if the improvisational strand doesn't work I can go back to what I know is already there. |
| 8 | On his wife: We met in Cracker. I played a maniac fan who murders a policeman and she did my makeup. I thought anyone interested in me looking like that must have genuinely liked me. |
| 9 | I'm in four different films this year, and I have four different accents. I sound different in every film. You have to love a character to play it well, and change in my work is what I want. |
| 10 | To pursue a career in Hollywood you have to have a personality bypass. Look at the top 20 stars in the world - there's probably only two actors among them. Hollywood's not about you as an actor. It's about your currency, what you 'bring to the table'. And I've never been one to jump through hoops for anyone. |
| 11 | 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. |
| 12 | A lot of the characters I play have problems, they are marginalized, they have serious psychological problems, problems with relationships, with childhood. These are big subjects, big subjects. You can't balk at work like that. As an actor, that's as good as it gets. |
| 13 | I think I have a natural, if I can say that, got a kind of natural ability in comedy. |
| 14 | The script will point you in certain directions and I go the opposite if I can. I try to do one thing and tell a different story with my eyes. I believe what's more interesting is always what's not being said. |
| 15 | 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. |
| 16 | Vancouver's a very child friendly city, there's... no doubt about that. |
| 17 | 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. |
| 18 | People go to the movies to watch a film and all they're thinking about is the actress's cellulite they saw in a magazine. |
| 19 | Anyone that knows me knows what I'm about, and I'm very much a British actor, a European actor. |
| 20 | My dad was rubbish at all other aspects of his financial life, but he's pretty good at paying the rent. |
| 21 | I'd love to play some kind of fop. |
| 22 | I was 16 when I was in a band, for about 10 minutes. I went off and did acting after that. So it was a wee moment for me when I sang. |
| 23 | In the late '70s, maybe just before I started, there was still an attitude that if you did film you didn't do TV and vice versa, but that's gone now. |
| 24 | 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. |
| 25 | I'd love to do a Columbo-type detective character in a series. |
| 26 | Biologically, I'm lucky - an angular face and dark coloring which shows up well on camera. |
| 27 | I just don't like the whole Hollywood thing. |
| 28 | I don't take a great deal of interest in party politics. Social politics interests me a great deal more. |
| 29 | Hunger's a great spur. |
| 30 | I hate the word 'hippy.' |
| 31 | 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. |
| 32 | When I look back at it now, my past and the way I grew up, I grew up on communes. |
| 33 | If there's anything you want to ask your parents, ask them before they go, because once they go, they're gone. |
| 34 | A lot of my work is with children and there's a reason for that, because they really level you. |
| 35 | The U.K. and the U.S. are very different countries, and it really shows in the television. |
| 36 | I often have scripts sent to me with allegedly Scottish characters where I end up telling them, 'You're going to have to rethink this whole thing!' |
| 37 | The thing I miss the most about Scotland is the football. |
| 38 | I think you should only wear jewellery if it has a story behind it. |
| 39 | I'd work with Danny Boyle every day of the week. No matter what he was doing I would do that. |
| 40 | Acting is a really insular thing. |
| 41 | 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. |
| 42 | The darker the character, the more interesting. |
| 43 | It depends who the director is you know, I mean Ken Loach for instance. I've done up to 32 takes with him. |
| 44 | The more people know about an actor the less convincing they become. A bit of mystery's a good thing. |
| 45 | I never go anywhere without my iPod. |
| 46 | I used to be a rabid reader, but now it's scripts or nothing - network television is quite relentless, and you can't drop the ball. |
| 47 | I never rehearse. Never! I think it's a waste of time. |
| 48 | In troubled times the last thing you want to do is to stick your money into a film. It's such a gamble. |
| 49 | I've always taken my love of children from my father. He was a children magnet. Suddenly, having my first child hit home what my dad went through. |
| 50 | People in Scotland appreciate homegrown talent, but it's getting harder and harder to get films made in Britain. |
| 51 | Guys, particularly in the West, go to the gym and train for hours and hours to pick up something that is heavier than them. Why would you want to do that? |
| 52 | I loved cinema while growing up and, for the longest time, wanted to be a director. |
| 53 | Each performance and each film is what it is. It's right and belongs within that moment. You look at it and try to make it fit your particular part of your character and your particular film. |
| 54 | 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. |
| 55 | A lot of Scots have settled in Canada over the years and it's a very easy place for Scots - they understand us, we understand them. |
| 56 | The first thing you should know about me is when I was three years old my mother left me and my father. And that was traumatic obviously for my father - he suffered a nervous breakdown at that time in his life. |
| 57 | 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. |
| 58 | Acting, the arts in general, is a magnet for the wounded of society. |
| 59 | The quality of TV drama nowadays is getting better and better. They've had to invent a new term for it: 'high-end television.' |
| 60 | I do tend to divide my childhood into darkness and light, and the first seven years were certainly the darkness. |
| 61 | I'm not someone who believes in wasting my vote. |
| 62 | Bullying is a terrible, terrible thing. |
| 63 | I love sci-fi because it leads in the imagination, and I always say it has the most intelligent fans in the world. |
| 64 | I've really enjoyed my work in television, but the problem for me is the turnover of directors every week. |
| 65 | My first love is art, and I see a lot of things in an artistic way. |
| 66 | I rant and rave about noise pollution. |
| 67 | Most of the time, you find that the smaller the budget, the more the project is about something substantive. |
| 68 | I feel like I'm the luckiest man on the planet. |
| 69 | I'd totally be attracted to a geek girl! |
| 70 | Anyone who knows anything about me knows that I am a very patriotic guy, in terms of my Scottishness and my roots. |
| 71 | I owe my father everything. |
| 72 | People like Jim Jarmusch or Spike Jonze make the kind of American cinema that really interests me. And working with them has, so far, been the only thing I haven't been able to do. But other than that I'm perfectly happy with where I am. |
| 73 | I hate that term, "Method". It's definitely been given to me over the years, but I don't know if it's true. My belief is that every actor's got their own "method", and as long as it works, that's OK. |
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