It's a good thing that beauty is only skin deep, or I'd be rotten to the core.

“If we were all suddenly somebody else.”

My rule of thumb is that I want to do things I'd like to go and see myself.

I don't want to do something that I've done before; I can't see the point of it.

Everyone deserves compassion.

'Hamlet' is one of the most dangerous things ever set down on paper. All the big, unknowable questions like what it is to be a human being; the difference between sanity and insanity; the meaning of life and death; what's real and not real. All these subjects can literally drive you mad.

I've got four houses in my street. I live in two, and the others are empty. I'll buy more as they come up, because I think it would be great to have the entire street.

I wasn't aware I was trading on my good name; I've never had a good name.

I don't think of myself as funny. I think of myself as rather grave, actually. And I'm suspicious of fun. I never quite know what that is or how to deal with it or how to generate it. That's my fault. I know it's a burden on the people I'm with. It's tiresome.

I'm pretty certain that if there is a will there is a way.

It's interesting to see how people bring different things to them. I think it comes down to the universal appeal of the Holmes-Watson that they can keep being discovered in different ways.

Look, how many stories have I broken? Hundreds. How many have proved to be untrue? There isn't one.

The other nice thing about the robes is that they keep you cool in the summer, and we were filming sometimes in Rome, where it was sometimes over 100 degrees.

I feel more and more at ease, because I think the older I get, the less pressure there is. People say, 'Well, he's not cutting edge because he's not in his twenties, so he's not expected to be.'

I suppose that some days I wake up I have to wake up and be responsible, reliable and down to earth, and some days I don't.

I think it's a bigger risk following a part that plays up your looks than it is to try and carve out a career as an actor.

London is my home... I know what's right and wrong here, and it's nice to have somewhere familiar to go back to.

Face it, I didn't become famous until I took my clothes off.

I sometimes shy away because I don't want to be too 'showy-offy' but the older I get I think, 'You have a handkerchief, put it in your pocket.'

I'm incredibly boring; I had a very happy childhood. I never starved, nor did I have a silver spoon in my mouth. I'm one of those terribly middle-of-the-road, British middle class, South London gents.

I had plenty of vices growing up.

I bungee-jump, skydive, surf and snowboard.

I'm always amazed at anyone's interest in what I have to say.

I know you can be up one minute and drop the next, so I'm trying to maintain a steady course so I can have some longevity.