25 Quotes by Tom Courtenay

There just doesn't seem to be a market for something with aspiration anymore.

I don't want to peak too early. The worry is that you never know until it's all over whether you peaked at all - and then you're finished and it's too late.

The film business is absurd. Stars don't last very long. It's much more interesting to be a proper actor.

I never did anything about my stardom, it never meant anything to me.

When I go out on stage I like to be aware that there are a lot of women there. They are generally the loudest laughers.

Take all this thing now about working-class actors and writers: it's simply a release of certain talents from that class.

When you're in a two-shot together, you can't be the same as when you're both in singles. Try as you will, it cannot be the same as when you're in the shot together. It simply cannot be. It's physically impossible. You're behind the camera desperately wanting to help your colleague. When it's just you, on your own, it can be self-conscious in a way that you're not when we're just talking, you and I, and then all of a sudden it's me and then it's you. The two-shots were probably more natural.

My occupation has been a great deal with David Foster Wallace, and he didn't manage it, and he was very much looking for something that isn't totally selfish, and finding meaning. It's a struggle.

I'm not religious. I love what Clive James said the other day. James is a brilliant writer, but he keeps on writing poems on stuff. And he said, "God doesn't have a leg to stand on."