Quotes

[Regarding he and Joseph Fiennes appearing in both Shakespeare in Love (1998) and Elizabeth (1998)] "He got to make love to Gwyneth Paltrow and Cate Blanchett. All I got was an Oscar nomination".

"My career has been in theatre for 23 years, with spits and coughs in bits and pieces of films. Scott [Hicks] very nicely said my entire career had been my audition [for the role in Shine (1996)]".

[about Quills (2000)] When you get to tongue kiss Kate Winslet and get paid for it, you say: I'll sign!

[on accepting the role of "Lionel Logue" in The King's Speech (2010)]: I first got the script in a fairly unorthodox way. It was in a brown paper package at my front door, like an orphaned child. A neighbour of mine knew this woman in London who wanted to produce it as a play, and on the coverlet it said, "Please forgive me, Mr. Rush, for sending this to your home, blah blah blah", and I read it and I went wow, great story.

[on performing with Colin Firth] [He] made me better. I didn't have to act listening. I was mesmerized by the hidden areas of truth he was uncovering.

[on accepting roles that might be considered risky] Occasionally you need to jump off a cliff and do things you know are not immediately within your grasp.

[on replaying the role of "Barbossa" to Johnny Depp's "Captain Jack Sparrow"] It's become an imaginative metaphor for me and Johnny as actors. It feels like we've been married for a long time and there are certain things that are never going to resolve themselves within the marriage. It's an interesting way for us to find the context for this kind of constant spat.

[on Johnny Depp] -- Jack is probably the pirate that everyone wants to be; he is freewheeling, he is absolutely his own man, he's hilarious-he's like Johnny. It was extraordinary to watch Johnny create this character. It was such a cool performance, very masterfully done. He is a brilliant actor. I'm Johnny's biggest fan. I was having a conversation with someone the other day and saying, "Do you know anyone in all of Hollywood history who's had the kind of independent, idiosyncratic, chameleon-like character actor career that Johnny Depp's got?" He brings all of that into this big pop, commercial film as Jack, and in the meantime goes off and does Finding Neverland and The Libertine, and now Sweeney Todd! If you look back on old Hollywood, I can't think of anyone who was that sort of model good-looking, Hollywood star who happened to be a brilliant character actor.

[ on Johnny Depp] -- I've been lucky because I do regard myself as a slightly aging character and I've been able to be in scenes with delightful women, like Kate Winslet, Cate Blanchett, Salma Hayek, Goldie Hawn . . . It's been a perk of the job. And the prettiest of all, of course, was Johnny Depp. He's so good-looking and he's a highly unpredictable and quite genius-type actor. He's so irreverent, so playful, so surprising on screen. He's an actor of such oblique approach to any given project; he always does something that no one's done before. With the pirate thing, you expect someone to be a bit like Barbossa, because he's historical-it goes back to Basil Rathbone or Robert Newton, the golden age of Hollywood villainy. But Jack Sparrow is not what anyone expected-[Depp] approaches it as a great actor. He's also a very cunning craftsman. He knows how to give you the fun of the character in the wide shots, and then he has these little internal moments in the close-ups. I always felt a bit like a piece of industrial machinery next to his efforts. Someone like Johnny is a great team leader . . . it's great not to have a diva. It's great to have someone who's very laid-back, very playful . . . he's probably the only person who dares to ad-lib. A lot of what he throws in makes it into the final mix. Jack Sparrow is some crazy part of Johnny's brain.

[In response to being asked about favorite actors he has worked with] Johnny Depp, we've been together for four-and-a-half years now on these films; he's one of the great character actors in a leading man's body who constantly surprises himself and his audience with his capabilities and imagination.