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" As much as I long for a sort of security and consistency sometimes, I do enjoy sort of being busted around. I really don't know what's happening sometimes next week, let alone this year. "

Matthew Macfadyen

Alone

Long

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" I don't feel like a romantic lead; I guess I feel more like a character actor. "

" I have felt some twinges recently, about parts I wanted to play that I may be getting too old and fat to do. 'Hamlet,' for example - maybe that's gone. I would love to play Richard II. "

" Nobody's really unsympathetic, I think. People do good and bad things. If a character's totally unsympathetic, they're not real and I'm not interested. "

" You'd never play Hamlet if you started worrying about who's played it before you. "

" It must be odd, being recognizable. I would hate to lose that anonymity. "

" My vanity is I'm terribly romantic! But being married is lovely. "

" What's exciting is there's a curtain that divides the audience from this other world. You want to see behind. "

" It's a real skill to be able to publicise yourself. "

" You never know how films are going to do and it is daunting if I think about it. "

" I think people ought to do what they feel useful at the time. If I do things because I ought to do them, I switch off. "

" People like to think that actors are terribly worried about ghosts of other actors in the parts they play. But you just have to get on with it. "

" I love TV and I love making films and I love doing plays. I feel very lucky to be able to do all three. "

" I think I do have a good eye. It's quite liberating, being in a position to read a script and say, 'No.' It's really the only power you have, as an actor. "

" I was quite a shy child. I would get terribly nervous and throw up before my birthday party. And then I would be fine. I feel the same now. I get nervous, then it's fine. "

" I'd auditioned for the National Youth Theatre and I didn't get a place and it was terrifying. "

" The security comes, as an actor, in knowing that you're not in control. If you try to control your career, or how people perceive you, you'll make yourself unhappy, because life doesn't work like that. So much is luck. It's much better to let yourself off, to think, 'There's nothing I can do.' "

" The actor in me would always like to be more dashing, or slimmer, or have nicer hair. "

Matthew Macfadyen

Hair

" The lovely thing about being an actor is being anonymous, it's never having to explain yourself. And that's what I find interesting about actors or painters I admire. I don't want to know about their lives. "

" It must be odd, being recognisable. I would hate to lose that anonymity. It happened for a while with 'Spooks.' No one notices me now. "

" Some British actors are snobby about telly, and I don't understand that. "

" There's always a concern as an actor that you'll be boring unless your character is swinging from a chandelier. "

" I wouldn't want to leave it so long before doing a play again, I get very stolid and sluggish if I do too much telly. "

" Apart from earning an awful lot of money, why would you go to Hollywood? "

Matthew Macfadyen

Hollywood

You

" I've worried more and more as the years have gone on. The more you're seen to be doing well, the more stress there is. You feel you ought to consider things more, and be more fussy - there's further to fall. All these little worries. "

" I did four or five years in telly, and by the end of it was drained. I was a bit sick of myself. I didn't feel like an actor anymore. That sounds silly, but when you're doing a play you're using different muscles, and it blew all the cobwebs away. "

" I can't throw books away. My wife is always telling me to get rid of some. "

Matthew Macfadyen

Books

Telling

" Nobody's just arrogant. I've met people who are embattled and dismissive, but when you get to know them, you find that they're vulnerable - that that hauteur or standoffishiness is because they're pedaling furiously underneath. "

" I just loved the whole idea of being an actor. "

" I try to be fussy about the parts I play. I think that's quite prudent, it means you're stretching different muscles, and you're scaring yourself by doing something which is out of your comfort zone. "