Top 202 Quotes & Sayings by Martin Freeman - Page 2

Please God, I'll never be in a war zone, but everything I sort of know about people who come back is that it's a hard transition to make. I mean, even if you've not been in a war, even if you've just been in the Forces, you come back and probably have more fights in civilian life.

Acting is reacting, and it's always easier to react when someone is doing a good job.

I've been doing interviews for years, and in all that time, I've virtually never read one and gone, 'Yep, factually and tonally that's exactly what happened.' Pretty much never.

I've not been called on to do a lot of accent work.

We all know that people who've never been on a film set think it's way more glamorous than the people who work on them.

I buy DVDs. I don't really buy CDs unless they're for other people.

My first engagement with any art was music.

Americans assume all British people have at least one servant.

Fans want to see a story with characters, and they want to see a story.

I have never been in, nor have I had any strong particular desire to be in, what is termed a costume drama, but I keep forgetting to think of 'Charles II' as a costume drama.

It's more fun playing someone who isn't just a bad guy.

Not all art is great; most of it's rubbish.

In my life, the strongest evidence of any fandom is 'Sherlock' - 'Hobbit' fans are positively restrained.

My default state is wariness.

As soon as you get two actors in a room and they're locking eyes, they're doing a scene.

I don't want to be alone; the thing I love about acting is the other people you're doing it with.

True heroics, obviously, is not the absence of fear, but having that fear and doing something anyway.

It's a funny thing, 'The Office,' because millions and millions and millions and millions of people didn't watch it. But culturally, it is more of a phenomenon than almost anything else I can remember as far as British television is concerned.

I've got a pretty good musical ear, and I can pick things up.

I like talky scenes.

As an actor, you know there are things you get asked to do that you do quite well, with less effort.

I think what 'The Hobbit' and Middle-earth deal in are quite universal and timeless themes of honour and love and friendship... so they're things that do resonate with people.

I think people just like seeing friendship. I think people like seeing people who just drive each other up the wall, but at same time, can't live without each other.

There are lots of things that keep me awake at night, but work isn't one of them. I mean, no-one's going to die if someone doesn't like what I do. So I don't feel a great pressure.

As soon as a job finishes, I am done with it. When I'm really, really enjoying the job, I love the job, I want it to end because it's supposed to.

I like out, I like the outside world.

Although there's an inherent light-heartedness to 'Sherlock,' I slightly err towards not doing the comedy.

I can't actually believe how good 'The Sopranos' is. I genuinely am dumbfounded by it. It's like when you realize how good The Beatles are, and you think, 'How did they do that?'

Don't get me wrong - I'm a big fan of things American - but when American people do British stuff, it's so universally dreadful.

Whenever someone says to my mum: 'How's your son doing?' she says: 'Which one?' If you're a parent, you're not going to go: 'Oh I'll concentrate on the famous one.'

You have to, in a way, just get your head down and do the work and not expect every day to bring riches and not expect every minute to bring wild excitement, 'cause it just doesn't. It doesn't on films, anyway.

I have played nasty people, but not everyone has seen that stuff. Before 'The Office,' I mainly got cast as little toe-rags.

I value being able to go into a record shop and people leaving me alone.

I could say, 'I want to play a French-African humpback,' but I probably won't get that role.

I'm not a writer, director or producer.

I think acting is all about the other people. Sounds like a worthy thing to say, but it's true.

On the surface, you think you wouldn't have to think at all about being asked to play Bilbo in 'The Hobbit.' It's not prison; it's a good gig. But you know it's going to take a long time, and it does. There are times when you thought: 'Gee, I've not seen my house for months.'

What makes Shakespeare eternal is his grasp of psychology. He knew how to nail stuff about us as human beings.

Organised religion, organised anything, requires commitment and requires an engagement with something. A lot of the time, we don't want to commit.

Rehearsals are one of my favourite things in the world.

All my life, I've felt people are looking at me. So, when I became known, it was like, 'I'm not imagining this any more. People genuinely are staring at me. Oh, Christ, now they're coming over!'

I don't think anyone looks into their family tree and expects it to come up smelling of roses.

I am a fan of the Coen brothers. I'm not a fanatic. I'm a big admirer. They create unique worlds, and there is a real atmosphere to their films. Not everyone can get that. That's a massive part of their appeal: you can recognise them. Like all the great directors or artists, you know it when you see it.

I like things that are simple, such as an alarm clock.

I hate the fact that so much of our life is computerised rather than mechanised.

The reason I've never gone for pilot season even as a younger actor, and wouldn't entertain that sort of thing now, is the idea of signing a piece of paper that binds me for six or seven years.

You're not fully you until life has booted you in the behind.

I read 'Animal Farm' when I was 11, and it remained my favorite book, really.

There was very little drama and performance at my school, so I've never forgotten the people who did encourage me and I've thought whether it would be a good idea to even get in touch with them and just say thanks, because they really opened a door for me mentally and emotionally - that's really important.

The Marx Brothers isn't subtle, and that's hilarious.

I know very few people who have literally improvised a film from start to finish.

You don't want your children to look at you like you are anything special other than their dad.

My ambition is to do what I like and to do good things that I might not have done before.

I work in public.

I think I'm less gloomy than I used to be - I've got a very supportive other half.

I've always loved Christmas and that's not really gone away from me from being a child to now. It's always a magical time and I'm unashamed in my love for Christmas.

Trouble is, some accents lend themselves to comedy.

My relationship with my belief has never been easy.

I love the smaller scenes. I love the smaller, slightly more theatrical scenes.

Actors are people who are doing a job they want to do, which isn't the case for many of the people who watch what we do.