In the closed circle of the war cabinet, pounded by terrible report after terrible report, there had been uncertainty about whether he could fend off the drift to exploring a deal with Hitler. The determination of the larger group trumped the tentativeness of the smaller, and Churchill fulfilled his role as leader by disentangling himself from defeatism--one of his singular achievements at the end of May 1940.
I can't imagine how many first performances I've done, perhaps 500. Some of them have been very good, and some of course very bad.
There's something really the matter with most people who wear tattoos. There's at least some terrible story. I know from experience that there's always something terribly flawed about people who are tattooed, above some little something that Johnny had done in the Navy, even though that's a bad sign...It's terrible. Psychologically it's crazy. Most people who are tattooed, it's the sign of some feeling of inferiority, they're trying to establish some macho identification for themselves.
I'm saying that the WMD reporting was not consciously evil. It was bad journalism, even very bad journalism.
Anyone who does investigative journalism is not in it for the money. Investigative journalism by nature is the most work intensive kind of journalism you can take on. That's why you see less and less investigative journalism at newspapers and magazines. No matter what you're paid for it, you put in so many man-hours it's one of the least lucrative aspects of journalism you can take on.
I've been asked this question about playing the baddie so many times. When I read the script, I said, 'Of course this guy has done terrible things, but he's a human being first,' and that's what I'm attracted to in a part like this. It doesn't make any sense if all of a sudden the guy is horrendously bad and that's it. You can't relate to him or understand him.
I've never had a terrible job. I've been a cook, waitress, bookseller, teacher, freelance writer. I know what the bad jobs are, and I haven't done them.
We don't really make bad records, though some people might like some more than others. And we have never really done a bad show. So I think in a way maybe we've been taken for granted.
Rove, of course, is an exceptionally good, exceptionally skillful campaign guy, and Bush himself is really gifted at the political end of politics. But he's always been, as he says, misunderestimated.
I have done so many stupid commercials and terrible other little projects that never went anywhere and just ended up being terrible.
The Labour Party in 2011 was in an exceptionally bad place. We'd been hammered in an election. We didn't see the scale of it coming.
We have been negotiating a lot of different transactions to save money on contracts that were terrible, including airplane contracts that were out of control and late and terrible. Just absolutely catastrophic in terms of what was happening, and we've done some really good work. We're very proud of that.
To be honest, I don't think I've played bad for England, I've certainly not been as bad as some people say. That criticism has been hard to take. I don't think I've let the country down too many times.
Yes, there's still much good journalism to be found, if you know where to look. Yet, ask reporters who've been around a while, and many will tell you that a lot of good journalism is being left unpublished.
I've done some awful auditions, and I've really done some horrible work, but it forced me to flex those muscles, and that's what makes you a better actor, just doing bad work and seeing what looks bad and growing from it.
I had some bad jobs when I was young. Writing is not one of them. If you're fortunate enough to reach my age, to still be writing, you have to be grateful, and I am. I've been lucky. For many years, all I've done is writing, and it's all I've ever wanted to do.