Top 100 Quotes & Sayings by Adrian Dunbar

I've been singing all of my life, one way or another.

I'd love to do something funny. Our work often deals with tough subjects. You do your research and it can be quite dark. So after all these years of drama, I'd like to go to work someday with the sole intention of making people laugh.

Portadown was the most marginalized of all the Nationalist communities in the North. Suddenly we were living in a town where, if you were Catholic, you literally couldn't walk up the street without getting into some kind of conflict.

Shakespeare was very political, but he was also a fabulous entertainer. That's where his genius comes in as a playwright.

People often say Beckett is difficult or bleak, but engaging with it is the most life-affirming, uplifting thing. It's his use of language. The music of the words works on your subconscious. You end up deeply moved but don't know why. That's where the magic lies.

There were two drama societies in Enniskillen when I was growing up, St. Michaels and the Enniskillen Amateur Dramatic Society, and I had the pleasure of working with them both.

You show me a family, I'll show you dysfunction.

I think 'Blood' is honest about the dysfunction of family life and Jim will have to get to the bottom of secrets being kept from him.

I try to get out to The Skelligs, and people will know The Skelligs from 'Star Wars' and so forth, but they really are the most incredible monastic settlement on this island off the south coast, the Kerry coast.

I'm over the moon to play an iconic character like Ted Hastings and for my career to be defined by this role - that's a place very few actors get to.

Because of 'Line Of Duty's proper adherence to police procedure, by definition we end up doing some very long interrogation scenes which are difficult to learn, and require lots of concentration to sustain them across shooting.

I know a lot of actors who have said to me, 'who'd have thought you could put a two-shot on screen for twenty minutes and people would be absolutely locked in, how does that work?' Well it does work, when the story is great and you've got these fabulous twists and turns - so those are my favorite bits!

People believe that forensics these days is the answer to everything and because we believe so ardently that forensics can lead us to the criminal we're also a bit nonplussed when someone gets in there and manipulates forensics to their advantage.

When you're young and a teenager, there's an air of excitement about living with a time when you have to grasp life as much as you can because it may be taken from you.

I was in bands many years ago, so that's where it started. I played in bands, sang backing vocals and all the rest of it.

Having lived in London since the 1980s, I would have come across, or my friends across, cops who were in the Metropolitan Police who had been in the RUC.

I have been doing stuff for a long time now and you would be in people's consciousness. But when you get something like a gift to play Ted Hastings, and some fabulous writing to get behind and a great crew, it suddenly allows people to go - 'I always knew he was good.'

I'd actually love to do comedy. It would be great to go to work to get a laugh.

You have the most amazing Irish actors. Cillian on 'Peaky Blinders.' And the most amazing actress.

I am absolutely an Ulsterman and I am reminded of that everywhere I go. I can't shake that in Dublin and I can't shake that in London - they are wary of us in both capitals.

I love music and hopefully I'll be able to do something with it - I just have to find time to get into the studio and record a few songs.

Yes, I did have a band for two or three years. They were called Adie and the Jonahs.

I'm not sure about doing 10 takes of running up a flight of stairs, whether I'm really up to that... but I'll definitely have a go!

I would hope that the Government would still support those small, struggling independent theatre companies and also maybe look to the built architecture of the theaters because we can't let them get into disrepair. They are part of the fabric of the country.

You don't want to be acting your way towards something. The sense of believability has to be great, so bringing it as close to yourself as you can always helps.

There was a period in my life when alcohol was a good friend. Then there came a point when I realized that it was definitely not a good friend. I haven't had a drink now for many years.

It's much better as an actor if you can bring as much of yourself as possible to a character.

I think it would be difficult to explore some aspects of Ted's past, because 'Line of Duty' investigates fictitious police forces - you never know, and you should never know, who it is we might be investigating.

It's 'Line of Duty' - you can't second-guess anything!

I've always been fascinated by Oscar Wilde.

The arts don't care what your background is. They belong to everyone.

I'm writing all the time, I never stopped writing.

You don't want to alienate your audiences, so you have to be careful but yet you have to be true enough to what you believe.

I've been lucky enough to do a tiny bit of Shakespeare onstage over the years.

Sometimes when working on TV, especially when doing procedural cop work, you can refer to your notes. Your notes, of course, do contain, naturally, all the information you need.

We're in a golden age for television. TV 25 years ago was slow, plodding , boring. The production values were not great. Today it's so much better. People get really invested it.

When I was at drama school some of the teachers, who were very wise, said to me, 'You're going to be a great actor in your 50s. Now, you're not malleable enough. You're doing one thing well but you need to loosen up a bit.' That happens to actors. You learn more about it and hopefully you get better at it as you get older.

We were always reminded by our teachers that careers take off at different times. They held up Arthur Lowe as a great example of an actor who works for years and then suddenly he gets a part and everybody knows him.

We don't know what is going to happen with Brexit, it's not going to be good for the North anyway whatever happens. It's not going to be good for Ireland whatever happens. And the problem is we don't know what is going to happen so we can't really prepare so everything is speculation.

I've been sweating away for 30 years - then I became Hastings.

The Frank Matcham theaters in the West End in particular are incredible pieces of architecture.

'The Decay Of Lying' is a very interesting treatise. It was actually penned as a dialogue between two characters, Cyril and Vyvyan, both of who were named after Wilde's sons. Wilde goes on to extrapolate art as a science and as a social pleasure, to its most logical and illogical extremes, and it ends up being very funny, indeed.

You hope that some day a part will come along and you can do your stuff and people will go, 'oh that's good.' I just got very lucky.

We lived in this ghetto during the worst excesses of the Seventies. When the tartan gangs came to wreck our estate, we had to defend it. We were barricaded in with diggers and earth-movers. It wasn't a case of joining the Republican cause, or the IRA - we were fighting for our very existence.

It was a fabulous time, doing 'Hear My Song.'

I try and speak out on things that affect where I live in London, and at home in Enniskillen. For instance, I am very keen we get our bypass - the town is completely clogged with traffic and it's one of the most beautiful inland towns in Ireland.

In Shakespeare, the moral balances are very fine.

I was really proud of the response to the first series of 'Blood.' Right from the get-go I knew it was a really good yarn and that it would have a chance if we got it right.

I think if we had an All-Ireland economy and the North was in the U.K. and in the E.U. that would be very good for the North.

Anything's possible in 'Line of Duty.'

You've got the armor and everything on, and you think, 'This is going to be great.' Then they give you a sword, and you think, 'Ah, it's not too bad.' And after 10 minutes you're thinking, 'Please, I can't be doing this all day.' I mean, I really don't know how people sustained themselves in real battles.

The variety of my career is amazing and amazingly satisfying.

Myth is sometimes more important than history.

Comedy is essentially about watching a bunch of people who you really love lose their dignity.

I do like things that are a bit reckless, so long as the people around me are professionals. Stuntmen will see you through anything.

People sometimes forget that alcohol is a chemical. It can change how you think. It was making me into a glass-half-empty person.

I am an Irish person. I'm an Irishman, but I'm also an Ulsterman.

The 'Mother of God' stuff comes from my dad who used to use that all the time. He would say, 'Mother of God' all the time. He used to just say 'Mother' and we know what he meant.

When something like 'Line of Duty' happens, your profile is such that you're asked to do different things. I'm careful not to spread myself too thinly or it just goes mad.

I don't know anyone else I could have hooked up with who could have handled me. I've got my woman and she's a very good one.