Top 103 Quotes & Sayings by Rhys Ifans - Page 2

I just don't buy the tabloids.

What was extraordinary about Occupy London was that it was a village with a louder voice than one of the biggest cities of the world.

I'll move back to Wales if and when I have children. I want them to speak the language I speak, but I love living in London. It's my favourite city in the whole world. I love it because it's not England, it's London.

I go to work, and I work very hard. I'm loyal, generous, true, kind, fair - all those boxes are ticked. I'm going to Heaven.

Villains are fun. I think the important thing in playing them is that they don't see themselves as villains. It lets you be a little more expansive.

In terms of partying and reckless abandon, I'm Don Juan. But, in terms of my heart, I'm the most loyal man you'll ever meet.

After you have been incarcerated for so long, whatever story is told in the aftermath is beautiful.

The strange thing is, if I was speaking to drama students about the thing that you should do if you're lucky enough to know or to meet the character that you're playing, I'd say, 'It's obvious: you quiz them diligently about their experience.'

Film can become stagnant as a medium.

I do find real life a bit overwhelming sometimes. I'm totally chaotic.

Spider-Man is a school boy that's looking for his parents.

You know you are in a good film when it affects the audience.

I don't have a problem with green screen at all. I think children invented CGI. We invent worlds. A stick can become a sword. Or a bowl of stones can become a bowl of tomatoes. That's what children do, and that's what CGI enables us to do.

More than any other super-hero, 'Spider-Man' presents us with something very local in its ethics. It's not messianic. It's far more tangible.

All punk rockers hate Christmas.

Film and stage are very different; I don't necessarily prefer one over the other. Every few years, I get a big itch to go back to the theater. To learn humility, to learn bravery and to remind yourself that the pistons that drive your craft are working on full power. And to remind yourself how badly paid actors can be.

I think Liverpool generates generosity which rubs off - it's a good place to work and to party.

On a conventional film, you do one take, and if it's good, they say, 'Let's do another one for insurance.'

Being on tour is a giggle.

There is no such thing as a criminal life. Life is life, and life is criminalized. No one ever, in the history of life, has chosen a criminal life. No one has ever said, 'I want to be a criminal.' No one ever has done that.

I consider projects very deeply, but there's always a point in your life where there's a bit of randomity.

As a Welsh speaker, I'm very conscious of how activism can effect real change.

There aren't many odysseys in cinema for characters.

Club DJs don't talk to the crowd.

I honed my passion for acting in theatre and education, and I think it's important not to belittle the child audience.

As an actor, our very palette is one of imagination. So it is a walk onto an empty space and then imagine the world beyond it is what we do.

I am essentially very shy. Which, I guess, is why I'm very good at not being shy.

I think that all great art never strives to answer any questions; it just asks the appropriate ones at the appropriate time.

I play really bad punk rock guitar.

Acting is not an intellectual process for me. It comes from my heart. It's this strange netherworld of osmosis where I simply become.

When I'm not filming, I do rock n' roll; when I'm not doing rock n' roll, I do filming.

Whoever wrote Shakespeare is a working class hero be he an aristocrat or a peasant. Shakespeare is a great leveler. We're presented with kings, queens, emperors and giants who feel the same things as everyone else: jealousy, love, anger, bitterness, grief, loss.

I am the least likely person in the world to be in an American football film! Which is why I couldn't say no to The Replacements; I thought it was hilarious.

Whenever you're doing film for television and you look at the budget that you have, which is much more constricted than a movie budget, you think, "God, are they going to be able to do what they say they are?"

The joy of a period film is that you're taken to another world. The costumes determine the way you move, and then consequently the way you breathe. And then, the way you breathe effects the way you think.

I've been to unpretty places with the roles I've played, and I'm attracted to reckless abandon. I like being taken to the edge of my own abyss.

I play really bad punk rock guitar. Age-old friends; it's just great hanging out with your mates, causing havoc.

I'm interested in playing Rasputin at some point. I find him such a fascinating character and a fascinating period in Russian history. Either Rasputin or Jesus. I think I have more of a chance to play Rasputin.

But in reading Shakespeare and in reading about Edward de Vere, it's quite apparent that when you read these works that whoever penned this body of work was firstly well-travelled, secondly a multi-linguist and thirdly someone who had an innate knowledge of the inner workings and the mechanisms of a very secret and paranoid Elizabethan court. Edward de Vere ticks those three boxes and many more. William of Stratford gave his wife a bed when he died [his second best bed].

When Howard Marks came out of prison, years later, I met him at a concert in South Wales; I was a young whippersnapper and Howard was kind of an outlaw hero. I said to him - and it's on tape, a cousin of his filmed our meeting - I said, "If you write a book, I want to play you in a movie." He said, "Let's shake on it," and we did. Thirteen years later, there we were, making the movie.

We're both Welshmen and growing up, when Howard Marks was finally caught, it was all over the news. He did an interview in the Welsh language, which I also speak, and I was sort of just amazed that this man from a small country was for many years supplying much of the world with most of the marijuana it was smoking. It was incredible.

Howard Marks is very intelligent and well read, eloquent, witty, charming. I think it was those qualities that got him through. I was interested to explore that because generally, we perceive criminals as dark, twisted, angry characters. Howard isn't any of those. He was punished for his crime, released from prison, and has lived to tell the tale.

I think Jesus was a bit more of a fun guy. I'd like to play Him like maybe some days He doesn't fancy it, being God. Some days He's miracled-out and just wants to go have a smoke.