Quotes

I was concerned about doing the right thing when I was a kid. I suppose as a child, you're a massive egomaniac, and you think that everything you do is going to affect the world.

I never went to acting school. I started in the circus, music hall, I was in a group, did kids' bits. I've always had this kind of insecurity being uneducated.

I'm entirely uneducated. I went to public school - public in the American sense - a blue-collar, working-class school. I never got a scholarship, I left when I was 15, never did any exams.

I was a dozy boy; I'd like to have been like James Dean, but I was more Arthur Askey - pathetically rebellious in a cheeky, chappy sort of way.

There's a thing I think children realize at a certain age, which is that if their parents say, 'Don't do it', and they go ahead and do it, they're still not going to die. And I think that's what it is: that no matter what you do, you're not going to die.

Not being anxious requires a level of humility, doesn't it? It does, I think. It's not all about you.

It's interesting when you're in your thirties and you're not the same pretty boy that you were when you were 21. I think people's anger at themselves getting older is projected on to you because you become a symbol of that.

I just think the older I get, actually, the better I feel.

The amount of work you need to do to become a very successful celebrity is something I'm not prepared to do.

I'm crap at interviews. I'm just not very good at sentences.

I don't plan. I don't think, 'I have to do this kind of part 'cause I've done that kind of part.' I'm not a very good planner.

The urge to act became the overriding force in my life. It thrilled me. There's a moment with acting when you're in the groove, and you and what you're trying to do are seamlessly one. That happens sometimes, and I'm really happy it can happen to me.

I kind of always wanted to act, but to get a grant I would have needed two A-levels, and I was too far away from even O levels. I didn't know you could get a scholarship, so I determined early not to pursue that.

On his character in Sherlock (2010): I'm too stupid even to be Watson. I'm just Lestrade.

I drifted into acting, and I've drifted into my career, and I've never been guided by anything particularly concrete.

On his favorite Sherlock (2010) scene: I don't often get too much to say. I think my favorite scene is when Lestrade first saw that Sherlock was okay, at the underground car park. The art is to react, in the moment, so it depends very much on what Benedict Cumberbatch is doing, and the other people are doing. And there's a scene [in the special] between Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson that was great. We've been friends for awhile, Una Stubbs and I, and it was great to get to act together.

Do you know what? Genuinely, it helps in this business being called Rupert. I've sniffed that attitude in acting: the Oxbridge thing. Making movies isn't a cheap exercise. You need money and the knock-on from that is the industry is populated by a lot of posh people. It's very hard to break into if you're not middle class and privately educated.