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" In my family, there was no celebration of ignorance. They'd come and see Chekhov or Shakespeare. I've got a sister who got a first in her degree. We don't sit around watching TV all the time. "

Eddie Marsan

Sister

See

Family

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" I listen to a lot of jazz. I'm a big Sinatra geek. I love Chet Baker. "

" I've never played a gay character on screen, so that would be interesting. I've never played a gay character, and that would fascinate me because I'm not gay, so that would interest me. "

Eddie Marsan

Gay

Never

" I thought 'Lock Stock' was a good film. I thought 'Lock Stock' was a good film because I think it was a one-off before it was imitated a hundred times. "

" When I think of character actors, I think of Spencer Tracy; I think of Gene Hackman, Robert Duvall. When I was a young lad watching films, my eyes were on them - watching 'On the Waterfront,' my eyes are on Rod Steiger and Karl Malden, not on Brando. "

" Acting was a way of me finding myself, which I think is the case of a lot of actors, regardless of where they come from. "

Eddie Marsan

Think

Acting

" I get a lot of people saying to me, 'Oh, you're the actor who plays the nutters,' and I'm not. I'm the guy who plays human beings. I understand why the characters are doing what they're doing. When you play a villain, you don't play a villain: you play a human being doing what he thinks he needs to do to get what he wants. "

" As a working-class actor, leaving school with no qualifications, being a printer and then becoming an actor and then working with people who to a certain extent had had a leg up. I never had that advantage. It's less an artistic need to express myself and more a need to prove myself. "

" The hardest thing to do and most miserable films are comedies. "

" Mike Leigh taught me about making choices - as an actor, you choose between being honest and clever, and with Mike, it's always about being honest. I learned how to behave on a film set from Jim Broadbent. He was a great example of someone with a fantastic career who kept his feet on the ground. "

" I come from a council estate in Tower Hamlets, and by no means am I the only person who has done well - one of my friends is head of year in a great school in Twickenham. Another is a writer; another is an artist, a musician. "

" I know what I try to do. I try to be professional, turn up, not make too much fuss, do the job. "

" I don't look like Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise. When you put me on the screen, the women don't want to make love to me, and the men don't want to be me. "

" There's no great mystery to acting. It's a very simple thing to do but you have to work hard at it. It's about asking questions and using your imagination. "

" I didn't do well at school, and I don't have lots of academic reference points. "

" As children, we all hold on to the myth of omnipotence. Comics are successful because kids identify with superheroes. They'll read a book or watch a TV programme and say, 'I'm that guy.' And that guy is always the one in control. "

" You can't write a screenplay if you've been doing a zero-hours contract. Which means that the people who write drama, the people who commission dramas, and the people who direct dramas all come from a small circle of society. "

" I could not be one of those actors who stays in character all day long. I'd go mad. "

Eddie Marsan

Day

Long

" I'm used to playing characters who have a lot to say but don't know how to say it. "

" My friends I grew up with were so supportive to me. And I'm not the only one who's done well. "

Eddie Marsan

Done

Friends

" When I was a struggling actor, I worked for a party company. One of my friends from school was working for an advertising agency, and I turned up to one of his company's parties dressed as an alien to collect tickets on the door. "

" I have my career and my family, and that's it. "

Eddie Marsan

Career

Family

" I love Bethnal Green and where I'm from. Nothing there, especially the people, ever held me back, but I never felt that I was successful there. "

Eddie Marsan

Green

Love

" I have friends who are leading men, and they're only ever allowed to play leading men of a certain type. But as a character actor, there's a wider variety of projects available. On the big Hollywood films, all they care about is having their lead in place, so it's actually easier for someone like me to slip in. And I'm happy to do so. "

" Art is the job of the privileged. "

" I'm the guy who plays human beings. I understand why the characters are doing what they're doing. When you play a villain, you don't play a villain: you play a human being doing what he thinks he needs to do to get what he wants. "

" Different races never fazed me because coming from Bethnal Green, I'd been around people of different races forever. Different class? That was much harder. "

" I've got four kids to feed and a wife to provide for. It's a worry but a great responsibility as well and one I relish. "

" I was brought up in a house full of women; the first time I realised no one was interrupting me was when I was on stage - that's probably the subconscious reason I became an actor. "