Mark Strong Quotes

The idea of transformation – playing something I’m not – is the bit I enjoy most about acting.

My mother moved abroad when I was 11, my dad wasn’t around from the time that I was a baby, so I was not the product of a family, but a product of observation – of watching what went on around me, of watching who I liked, what I didn’t like, what I thought was good behavior and what I thought was bad behavior and tailoring myself accordingly.

It’s great to have the chance to play a character before he goes to the dark side, or the yellow side if you will. Normally, you don’t get that opportunity. The narrative of a movie usually demands that you are that guy from the start.

In the past, if I didn’t work, I didn’t eat but now I feel I can not work and I won’t starve.

If you think about Shakespeare, you remember Richard III and Macbeth before you remember Ferdinand, whose role is just to fall in love and be a bit of a wimp. I love the baddies. More important, though, is making the baddies somehow, weirdly, understood.

I’m very organized and tidy in my home life and I generally do something myself rather than farm it out to somebody else. I don’t have an assistant or anything because I think I can do it myself.