57 Quotes by Jim Broadbent

It’s fatal to talk about acting. It sounds faintly ridiculous if you start analysing it.

I regret behaving badly when I was younger. I did not know any better at the time. The thing is that the incidents that I caused were not funny... Youth is wasted on the young. It is better to have the wisdom of an old man in a young body... I was a bit foolish and teased people, trying to be funny.

I'm a child of that, the 'Bonnie and Clyde' to 'Raging Bull' period, you know. Those are the films that heightened my interest in acting and movies and everything.

Fluency in even one other language would be fantastic.

Even for people who live in the country, there is a trepidation now about going outside to play. But it never occurred to us to be fearful when we were young.

As a young actor, I was advised to bide my time. Back then, there weren't good roles for someone like me. There were handsome leading men and character actors for smaller supporting roles. But I was told to hang in there, and it was good advice. We're all character actors now. Even a handsome man is a character actor at my age.

We get older and more sophisticated and a bit cleverer, but certainly boys - and men - are as childish and basic as we ever were.

Occasionally, I've been asked to do American roles, and once or twice I have, but I don't understand Americans. I don't have any real feeling for American culture.

An Oscar clears the deck of envy and resentment. You think, 'Well, I've got that. I can relax now.'