46 Quotes by Tom Burke

"Sometimes people hide behind a kind of naturalistic milieu. But life is full of the most sharp, abrupt changes of tone, from the tragic to the absurd."

"The only thing that I can say with any degree of commitment is a reason to he happy is... moderate weather. But then even that gets boring and I find myself wanting a storm."

"I feel like an expressionist nihilist deep in my heart. And I think nihilism can stop the wheel from going around, around, around, around, around - saying the same thing, reacting the same way."

"I've only three times in my career felt I absolutely had to play a part and the first two I got close and was vetoed - by the same person actually. So when 'Strike' came along I had no qualms about signing on for something I was potentially still going to be doing in 10 years."

"My dad was part of that generation with Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay, of working-class actors breaking through. They'd never had an actor in the family."

"Philip of Spain is a ruler who has forgotten that a ruler is there to serve the people."

"You only have to look at Manchester's Royal Exchange or Home to understand the huge energy outside London - there's enough talent around the country to have a Donmar and National in every city. It just comes down to money."

"I remember spending time in Stratford growing up with all that company running round and putting on silly hats and just having fun all the time."

"I got a pommel in my eye. A pommel is the end of a sword - not the sharp end, the other end. It wasn't actually a sword fight. I was rugby tackling somebody but we hadn't rehearsed with all the kit on so suddenly there's a whole other part of the equation and that did really hurt."

"Doing a TV show where it's a very relentless schedule, it does democratise you in a brilliant way. It does chip away at the old ego and you do realise that you're only really ever as good as the words that you're saying, the people you're talking to, or more importantly, listening to."