I think the most beautiful sound is a child laughing.

For years, I've been mistaken for Rhys Ifans. All the time. People come up and say, 'Notting Hill?' I nearly got beaten up once for not being Rhys.

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...'

It's certainly not easy having to spend a lot of time apart, and having a five-year-old child who's got to be at school. So we need to learn how to organize our time really well because for months we will be in two different countries.

That's one of the main things I've learned: honesty is paramount. The biggest thing I try and instil in my daughter. My deepest regrets have been to do with times that I've been dishonest. There's nothing worse than getting caught out in a lie. It's excruciatingly embarrassing.

I must have read three-quarters of 'Anna Karenina' on my phone. Which might be a record.

I love being a dad.

I keep myself content by doing lots of different stuff and make sure that my next role is completely different to the last. I just enjoy the versatility of it, the challenge of doing lots of different things. It keeps the job interesting.

I'm often cast as religious figures, good and bad, such as 'Kingdom Of Heaven.'

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

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 often draw from people in my own experience to base a character on, going back to my days with Mike Leigh.

Before Anna, I'd had a few relationships and I'm glad I've been around a bit. I know where it's gone wrong or know who are the wrong people for me and who I might be wrong for.

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've always tended to write comedy, but I'd hate to just write some kind of sitcom or a lighthearted series of jokes and slapstick. I wanted to talk about some deeper things within the comedy.

I could, of course, have written about the film world and the jealousy there and the frequent belief that others don't have talent. But, for some reason, it just struck me to write about art.

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.

I've always loved writing. It was always what I wanted to do.

I enjoy things that are so far away from me; that's why, when I play things that are a little bit closer to me, I get really bored. When it's something that's the antithesis of what I am, there's much more to lose yourself in.

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

Everybody knows someone like that: wonderful, attractive people full of passion and ideals. You envy them, but you know there's a dark side, which is brutal and cruel and violent. That dark side informs what's wonderful about them, and the passion and rage inform the darkness; they're inseparable.

Publishing a novel was such a proud thing for me. When I was a kid, I used to say to my mum and dad, 'I'm going to write a book. You'll see.' So when I did ,and it was published, and people liked it, it was great.

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

In 'Seven Years In Tibet,' I played a Buddhist. But I'm not religious at all, really.

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

And it was only released in London last week, so when I go back to England Monday or whatever, I am expecting heaps of adulation. I'm hoping there is. If that doesn't happen I will be disappointed.

I met the Coens here a few years ago and they said they liked my work.

I had grown up in a toy shop in Blackpool and then moved to London to do an acting course.

I started doing the big Hollywood stuff, and I realised, 'Oh, there's no rehearsal at all; you just turn up on the set, and sometimes you haven't even met the other actor, or the woman who's playing your wife, and you're suddenly in bed with them.'

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.

Yeah, well that's the best thing about it, I think, is knowing kids and kids getting mental when they know you're in it. Any kid you meet and anyone I know tells the kid you're in it and they get short of breath.

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.

You always have to look for something beautiful wherever you go.

It's not the easiest thing to have two actors in a family.

I had no idea how one became an actor. I didn't know things such as drama schools existed. It all just sort of happened accidentally.

I see people around me with very unhappy love lives, who may have held out for that perfect somebody. And the failure to achieve that brings along a lot of bitterness which is very unattractive; therefore they're probably less likely to achieve it.

You become judged entirely on your ability to bring in the dollars, and the fact that none of the films I did was a huge hit became significant.

Playing a character who becomes a Buddhist was a great experience.

I usually do watch what I've done because I think it's important. I think you can learn from it and see what you thought you were doing and what ends up on the screen.

'Naked' kind of kicked me off into the film world. It just so happens that all of the things that I have been offered have been films, and I've enjoyed the travel that goes along with that.

I adore children. If I weren't an actor, I would be a teacher or work with small children in some way. I feel happy in their company.

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 was a young actor in my 20s, going out in Soho, having a wild time.

The oddest things happen to me. It goes in seasons. Nothing will happen for a long time, and I miss it, and I remember how these strange coincidences used to happen to me and how amazing it was, how it made me want to believe in something. A year will go by, and then a slew of them will come along, like buses, one after another.

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?'

I did 'Basic Instinct 2' because I had a baby about to be born, and the director said we could shoot before the due date.

When you do something well, this is the best job in the world.

I like time off. I'm not a workaholic.

'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.

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.