Crime is interesting. It's huge and fascinating, and it's what my business, TV and film, is largely based on. But the realities are tragic, and in crime drama you rarely see the pain of bereavement or any consequences. It's reduced to a chess game.
I have a fairly normal domestic life.
My Italian granny and my mother made great spaghetti, but it wasn't a kind of southern Italian, Godfather-esque kind of thing - it was a wonderful, big mixing pot of all kinds of people - when you came home from school and your mum wasn't in, there were lots of people you could go to.
I don't want to find myself at the age of 60 waiting by the telephone for someone else to decide if I am capable of being in what might be a crummy TV production.
The higher your profile, the more people want you.
I'm so lucky to have worked with Burt Lancaster, who I remember was one of the first people I'd heard swearing in a really interesting way.
The only person that I want to love me is my wife.
The biggest problem of all is that it's very difficult to tell my daughter, 'Swearing is not clever or funny,' because I earn a living by swearing.
I think the nice thing about 'Doctor Who' is whether people like it or don't like it, somewhere, someone loves you and will always love you - and the more everyone hates you, the more they'll love you.
I just consciously try to enjoy the good things that are happening. And if it ended tomorrow, that would be fine.
What you're doing is acting with yourself. Well, I'm my favourite actor, so in a way it's quite straightforward for me.
When I was at school, you couldn't draw and be into football, too. If you were into art, then you were seen as an absolute pansy, and there was no way you'd be admitted to the guys' world of football.
I don't have any expectations of anything.
I suppose I just like being arty. That's all. Arty.
Nowadays, kids... young actors... they go straight to L.A. before they've even done anything.
I absolutely hate mowing the lawn. When I hear the mowers starting, I want to kill myself: it's the sound of death approaching. Hoovering's OK, but I never in my life wanted to have a lawn and certainly never wanted to mow one.
I don't remember 'Doctor Who' not being part of my life, and it became a part of growing up, along with The Beatles, National Health spectacles, and fog. And it runs deep. It's in my DNA.
The Americans just have a great sort of wit about them.
I don't want to make a film to make a film.
Shouting at people keeps you alive, healthy, young, fresh.
Hollywood producers aren't going to say, 'Get me that swearing, grey-haired, headless chicken. We need him for our new 'High School Musical' movie!'
I don't like parties. There was never a party I was at where I didn't wish I was somewhere else.
Nothing compares to being in a room full of politicians screaming abuse at each other all night. It's hilarious but also a bit terrifying.
If you put me in a real Tardis, I dread to think what would happen to the universe.
Believe it or not, one teacher used to call me a giant spastic for not being able to play football.
Generally I draw every day just to keep my hand in. I draw while I'm sitting on the Tube or in restaurants. Just doodling things and people I see.
I've had very bleak experiences in hospitals, but they were also sometimes very funny.
I destroyed all my geek stuff because I didn't want to be a geek, and I regret it to this day. Consumed in the geek bonfire of the vanities was a collection of autographs and letters from Peter Cushing, Spike Milligan and Frankie Howerd, the first Doctor Whos, actual astronauts, and many more.
Recently, I dreamed that I returned home to find my wife had married Ray Winstone. They were kind and let me stay, but the whole thing was awkward.
I like the constant rise and fall of the British film industry. But above all, I like the workhorses who kept going no matter what.
I hate the Internet. It's full of rubbish. I'm on it all the time, watching terrible, useless things and ossifying my brain.
The truth is that I got to Hollywood, and I didn't know what to do once I got there.
I've always been interested in the idea of people who fell through the cracks.
The best advice is to get on with it. I'm very prone to falling into depressions - not clinical, just 'can't be bothered.' It's such a waste of time.
I've been really terrible in a lot of things because I learned by making mistakes. That makes you a different kind of actor, because you have to figure out for yourself what you do.
I find the closer you get to people, the harder it is to satirise them.
I could never plan to have a career that went this well... you know, there were times when it didn't: when it went into the toilet, or ducked, or was difficult to get moving.
I'm creative. I can't relax unless I've got some project on the go. I'm somebody from art school, and art school during the punk era, when you just had a go at whatever came along.
Comic-Con is so legendary, so a great thrill to be invited along.
We don't consider the Wizard of Oz or Father Christmas to be too old. They're still magical characters, and the fact they've been around the block only adds to their magic.
My childhood growing up in that part of Glasgow always sounds like some kind of sub-Catherine Cookson novel of earthy working-class immigrant life, which to some extent it was, but it wasn't really as colourful that.
The difference between movies and TV is that in TV you have to have a trauma every week, but that event may not be the biggest event in the characters' lives.
I was always admiring people who seemed to conduct themselves with ease in the world. Maybe that's a great gift to give your kids if you can do that. Because they can move through the world without neurosis, this anxiety about everything, which our own parents gave us.
I think the whole spoiler thing has taken over the media.
When I was a kid, I wrote to the BBC, and the producers sent me a huge package through the post with 'Doctor Who' scripts. I'd never even seen a script and couldn't believe that they actually wrote this stuff down. It sort of opened a door.
I've only lost my temper three times in my whole life.
The British film industry has always tried to sell itself as something rather sophisticated. It's almost as if it thinks it is by royal command. It has always tried to claim the high ground, not only over Hollywood but over the whole of humanity!
I didn't want to be Doctor Who in a 'Doctor Who' that I didn't like.
You can't blame anyone for being cynical about politicians.
