I've had an unbelievable life. I've been very lucky. You do create your own luck too, you know? I never forget where I'm from. Whenever I pass a building site or see somebody digging a ditch, I always think, 'That's real work.'

Well, I think they're all basically the same story. Every culture in the world has them. When you strip it down and analyze it, it's the young man or girl who goes through a trial or ordeal and hits a very low ebb but manages to get guidance from a Merlin type figure.

I do believe at the end of the night when you're with your family, the character gets hung up on the door like a coat, and is there to be taken on the next morning.

But I was very, very lucky, and it was a wake up call as far as motorbikes are concerned. I never flirted with death on the bike, but now I'm totally convinced they're death machines.

I think I'm past my due date. I just feel it.

Kinsey's quest was really for us all to be tolerant and accepting of each other.

I think if you're the son or daughter of successful actors and actresses, it's a double pressure. More is expected of you.

I'm trying to be a comedian, you know?

I don't do my own stunts, but I do my own fighting. I don't consider fighting to be a stunt.

Acting with creatures that aren't there is kind like acting with an actor who refuses to come out of his trailer. You still have to go on and do the scene.

I have no desire to play King Lear or Hamlet. I never had a grand ambition. I just followed my nose.

I was very slow in maths, geometry I actually enjoyed.

I was reared a Catholic but I think every day we ask ourselves, not consciously, what are we doing on this planet? What's it all about?

It's funny, but you get to a time in your life when you think you have all the friends you will ever have.

I loved school.

It is fun to explore these kick-butt characters.

It's easy enough to plan jobs, to plan a lot of work.

Well I think people think sex is controversial. Not always, but certainly it's something to be discussed.

I did, although I didn't read from page 1 to page 187 but I read chunks of it. I did a little bit of science when I was in the university so I was able to understand the graphs and pie charts and stuff like that. It was extremely dry.

I thought, well of course, Kinsey absolutely adored teaching. He was a wonderful teacher. So these kids really inspired me. So that was a clue I hung onto. He loved young people, he absolutely loved them. And he loved teaching them and trying to help them.

Well I was on the jury duty on the Deauville Film Festival, a few years ago.

I had done some flimflam movies, but I didn't understand what being an actor meant anymore.

When I see great boxers, it's like reading a wonderful poem.

And as the hour approached for the execution, in his own mind, Collins became both the executioner and the victim. He would pace up and down, transformed in almost a kind of exorcism when he knew he was responsible for taking someone's life.

I'm still a proud Irishman, of course, but I've become an American citizen. I'm very, very proud of that.

I try to be a hard boiled sometimes. My kids see right through it. I'm acting. It's always, 'When I say you'll be back at 11, that means 11, not 11.15. Do you hear me!?' Then, 'Yeah, Dad.'

I do shadow boxing and use a heavy bag, but I don't spar with anyone.

It's an extraordinary thing, this tiny little province of Northern Ireland, where carnage happened. And I was part of it. I grew up in it.

But, you know, there's still an argument, there's still ten states that outlaw premarital sex, and many more states where adultery is still outlawed and a crime.

The putting on of vestments and lighting candles, it's a wonderful ritual that never changes from one Mass to another.

It's interesting, the more successful you become the more people want to give you stuff for nothing.

Sitting down to eat in our house is about sharing, you know, talking about the day you've had, be it in school or work or whatever, so that's very important to us.

To be honest, I'm scared to death of rollercoaster rides.

I always wanted to be a cowboy, and Jedi Knights are basically cowboys in space, right?

I'm so touched that complete strangers will send me a script asking me to be in their film. That still amazes me - and sometimes for a lot of money too.

I was an OK boxer, I wasn't great, I was OK, but I loved the discipline of getting together every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, usually Saturday afternoons too, with a whole bunch of mates and training, very, very hard for about two-and-half hours.

I never thought about becoming a professional singer, but I am in touch with Bono about releasing a musical movie. It will be about an Irish band during the '70s who are looking for fortune in Las Vegas. I should play the singer of the band but I don't want to sing in front of anybody.

Hollywood is throwing action movies at me.

At the Sex Institute in Bloomington, Indiana, they were a phenomenal help, too. We went out there for a few days, and they gave us access to materials. And the biographies, there are four or five, ranging from very poor to excellent.

I'm not the kind of actor that would know what my character had for breakfast last Tuesday.

And the Institute sent me a little film footage of Kinsey himself preparing to do an interview for television to talk about his work, so that was quite valuable for me.

The Irish Catholic side was married to the life of an actor and I found out acting could be a form of prayer.

In bed at night, I could be reading some book, and I'll come across a sentence that's totally unrelated to some scene I did years ago. But I'll play the scene back in my mind and think, I did that wrong - I should've opened the door more slowly.

I don't think that I am a sex symbol, although it's very flattering.

I have friends who have daughters and there's times I think I'm glad I have boys instead of girls.

I gravitate toward women.

Acting is invigorating. But I don't analyse it too much. It's like a dog smelling where it's going to do its toilet in the morning.

In Los Angeles, it's like they jog for two hours a day and then they think they're morally right. That's when you want to choke people, you know?

But, you know, sex is controversial, it just is and it always will be.

Getting married and settling down isn't the most important thing in my life.