My view of actors is that basically they're all harmless lunatics who'd be on the psychiatrist's couch, except that we get this sort of catharsis every six months or so, and we go and be absolutely someone else.

I regard myself as someone who is retired but who occasionally goes out to work.

You cannot have one bathroom. And it don't matter how much you love your wife and everything, 'cause you wind up with no room at all. You just get a little corner, and you've got a toothbrush and your paste and a shaving brush and a razor.

The absent are never without fault. Nor the present without excuse.

I need a challenge ’cause I don’t get the girl anymore.

It’s much harder to act in a bad film than in a good one. A terrible script makes for very difficult acting. You can win an Academy Award for some of the easiest acting in your career, made possible by a brilliant script.

If you held a pistol at my head, I couldn’t tell you who they’re going to vote for Best Actor.

Presenting the Oscars was the most nerve-racking job I have ever done in show business. It’s very much a live show: they have comedy writers waiting in the wings, and as you come off between presentations, they hand you an appropriate gag to tell.

What it is is that comedy is underrepresented in every actor’s life, because it’s so bloody difficult to write. Anyone can write; and then you leave it to special effects to make it look good. But comedy, you’ve got to do some writing.

To me, growing old is great. It’s the very best thing – considering the alternative.