Rupert Friend

I love learning things, whether it's a language or Philippine knife-fighting or the Viennese waltz.

I find the English flag - the cross - quite frightening; it has very bad symbolism for me. Not just football hooligans but supremacists and the BNP.

Even if it's a bit blunt, I really appreciate somebody being straight with you.

Seeing, say, 'My Left Foot,' and 'The Last of the Mohicans.' How is that the same person? Or people like Johnny Depp, who can play Jack Sparrow and Edward Scissorhands. I am so interested in the transformation, in not knowing anything about them and watching somebody create a character. I'm not really interested in personalities.

When I come home, all I do is cook. I love cooking, so I go to markets, buy food, cook it for friends. I love doing that.

I've never really thought about settling down anywhere. I like to keep moving.

I really enjoy the fact that the very boring, normal person that I am isn't kind of interesting to anyone. It's fine by me.

I don't do glamorous things.

I'm studying Krav Maga, which is an Israeli form of self defense. It's very deadly and without rules.

I've never got on with recipes. Free yourself - throw them out!

Wood is weirdly a big passion of mine. I really love it, all the way from trees to a finished table. The fact that it was alive and that each piece is different.

I have to be absolutely drawn to the project. If you're ashamed or bored by it at the beginning, it's going to be a pretty nightmarish thing.

My grandfather, who is English, was a member of a gentleman's club called the Caledonian, which you can only be a member of if you have Scottish lineage.

I find dipping one's toe into all of these people's lives is one of the major exciting points of being an actor. This dilettantism.

It's an imaginative thing we do; it's about immersing oneself in one's imagination. If you're a novelist, you do it with pen and paper. We do it with our bodies.

'We' is a difficult word for me. I don't know if I feel 'we' about anything.

I guess the reason I wanted to be an actor was that it felt like it would offer something different all the time.

What theatre people love about theatre - and I totally understand it, I just don't share it - is that they feel they mint something afresh every night. Because I would rather do something until I've done it and then know it's done. New day, next thing!

I don't love plays. I don't love doing the same thing, every night, for 100 nights in a row.

Some are in it for the money, which is fine. Some of them are in it to be a movie star; that's another reason. Some actors - and this I never understand - will only play likeable characters. And if they're not likeable, they change them to be heroic.

I went to a drama club when I was little, but it was more of an excuse to flirt with girls than anything else. We never put on plays.

The most contemporary film I can think of is your standard romantic comedy, but the minute you make them, they already look so aged.

If I make a film about now, the minute it was done, it wouldn't be about now; it'd be about then.

It's all very brilliant to build bridges and buildings, but long after we're gone, it will be the natural things in this world which will still be here.

Eating cold tuna fish out of a tin on a porch while two people are in love across a lake - I think that's desperately lonely.

One of the things I noticed in my career that gave me a lot of happiness early on was realising we don't have any control.

Becoming that guy who does one thing is not very interesting. I'm lucky and proud to have been involved in period films and action films.

I was quite solitary for 'Hitman.' I was quite apart. He struck me as a very sad individual. There was a mournful quality there.

I've been a big blagger all my life.

Everybody has many people inside of them. I think we tend to present the one we feel is most appropriate at first in order to gain acceptance or achieve what we want.

I'm a big fan of imagination. I think it's the strongest tool we have, and there are some things that you just can't practice.

I find it easier to approach things from a critical angle that otherwise may seem daunting because I'm used to being scared.

I would say that being open to new things is kind of vital in this line of work, if not all lines of work, and being prepared to embrace the challenge of the new thing is something I want in my life until the day it's over.

We have characters in Western television shows who are in full health with shiny hair and shiny teeth, and they go about their lives having minor problems.

The old saying, 'An army marches on its stomach' has never been more true than in film and television. If it's good, cheerful, and exciting and full of great yummy things, then everyone does really well. If it's the opposite, it's very disappointing.

I am a very sporadic watcher of television. I don't watch a lot of it.

Intrigue is so much more effective. I don't like to be over-prescriptive of an audience. The same with a book or with art - people shouldn't read too much before they explore.

One of my uncles took me to my first movie in a cinema - 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.'

All I would say is that when I've been very down or having kind of a tough time in my life, certain films or pieces of music or books have changed that. They've taken me out of a dark place and put me into a more positive one. And I think that if we can do that for people, then it's certainly worth doing.

The one thing I couldn't imagine is stopping still.

I'm not a big fan of people telling each other what to do, I'll say that.

I'm a dual citizen in a way. I live in the States and have a green card, so my connection to British politics is almost nonexistent.

I'm a bit of a technophobe.

I was asked by this British band called Kairos 4Tet to write lyrics for them. And I wrote lyrics for them. The album is called 'Everything We Hold,' and you can hear my lyrics.

The Blue Ridge Mountains are an incredible place.

I've never been to war, and I would never presume to fully understand the horrors that that kind of experience can impart.

I'm always interested in what we're not being shown. So if you're playing ostensibly a quote-unquote 'baddie,' what are their good sides, and vice versa.

The accent in England can change literally from street to street, and people have this sort of feudal tribalism whereby you can identify somebody's provenance by their voice.

My great grandparents are Scottish, and I have this very tenuous connection which I try and bump up whenever I can, because I'd much rather be Scottish than English.

Edinburgh is so cultural and such a beautiful place to walk around.