Best 50 quotes of Robert Carlyle on MyQuotes

Acting is probably the greatest therapy in the world. You can get a lot stuff out of you on the set so you don't have to take it home with you at night. It's the stuff between the lines, the empty space between those lines which is interesting.

Acting, the arts in general, is a magnet for the wounded of society.

A lot of Scots have settled in Canada over the years and it's a very easy place for Scots - they understand us, we understand them.

A lot of the characters I play have problems, they are marginalised, they have serious psychological problems, problems with relationships, with childhood. These are big subjects, big subjects. You can't balk at work like that. As an actor, that's as good as it gets.

Anyone that knows me knows what I'm about, and I'm very much a British actor, a European actor.

Anyone who knows anything about me knows that I am a very patriotic guy, in terms of my Scottishness and my roots.

At times of the severest depression, humor is what binds people together.

Biologically, I'm lucky - an angular face and dark colouring which shows up well on camera.

Bullying is a terrible, terrible thing.

Each performance and each film is what it is. It's right and belongs within that moment. You look at it and try to make it fit your particular part of your character and your particular film.

Every actor I think has got their own number of takes that they like, you know. Some actors like to go all day, you know on the one scene and some actors want to take two takes. I personally like four.

For me, it's a voyage of self-discovery. I'm able to go on a set and to explore situations, personalities, people and characters that are close to me, or maybe not. Through going there and experiencing these different people and their situations, it helps me to get oriented and develop as a human being. So, acting is fundamental to who I am.

Guys, particularly in the West, go to the gym and train for hours and hours to pick up something that is heavier than them. Why would you want to do that?

Hunger's a great spur.

I'd love to do a Columbo-type detective character in a series.

I don't want to be a luvvie actor. It took a long time for me to accept I was an actor, a professional actor, and that, actually, I make a living out of this.

I do tend to divide my childhood into darkness and light, and the first seven years were certainly the darkness.

I'd totally be attracted to a geek girl!

I hate the word 'hippy.'

I have a reputation for being an improvisational actor, which is true, but I also know what I'm doing so that if the improvisational strand doesn't work I can go back to what I know's already there.

I like to be working and moving - the worst thing you can do to me is stick me in a room all day while you're lighting a shot. That just kills me.

I loved cinema while growing up and, for the longest time, wanted to be a director.

I love sci-fi because it leads in the imagination, and I always say it has the most intelligent fans in the world.

I'm in four different films this year, and I have four different accents. I sound different in every film. You have to love a character to play it well, and change in my work is what I want.

I never rehearse. Never! I think it's a waste of time.

In the late '70s, maybe just before I started, there was still an attitude that if you did film you didn't do TV and vice versa, but that's gone now.

In troubled times the last thing you want to do is to stick your money into a film. It's such a gamble.

I often have scripts sent to me with allegedly Scottish characters where I end up telling them, 'You're going to have to rethink this whole thing!

I rant and rave about noise pollution.

I think I have a natural, if I can say that, got a kind of natural ability in comedy.

I think you should only wear jewellery if it has a story behind it.

It's much more fun to be ugly.

I used to be a rabid reader, but now it's scripts or nothing - network television is quite relentless, and you can't drop the ball.

I've always believed that as an actor anything you're asked to do is within you. You just have to try and find it.

I've never been good at accepting jobs six months down the line. I can't do it. If I'm thinking about this, I can't think about that. So I always seem to fly by the seat of my pants.

I've really enjoyed my work in television, but the problem for me is the turnover of directors every week.

I want to keep audiences off balance, so they don't know who I am or how to take me. If I duck and weave, as Frank Bruno might say, I'll have a longer shelf life.

I was 16 when I was in a band, for about 10 minutes. I went off and did acting after that. So it was a wee moment for me when I sang.

My dad was rubbish at all other aspects of his financial life, but he's pretty good at paying the rent.

My first love is art, and I see a lot of things in an artistic way.

My understanding of zombie movies is people rising from the dead, from their graves, stuff like that, and walking very slowly.

My wife was a make-up artist, and she's a total product junkie. Our bathroom is packed full of lotions and potions so I end up trying them out.

People in Scotland appreciate homegrown talent, but it's getting harder and harder to get films made in Britain.

So many of my friends, old friends I haven't seen in years, made their way out there and got lost, then found their way back. That seems believable to me.

The more people know about an actor the less convincing they become. A bit of mystery's a good thing.

There's a kind of unwritten rule: Don't say anything at all, and everything will be fine. It's a producer's medium. The directors aren't there to make any decisions. They're not going to change anything.

The script will point you in certain directions and I go the opposite if I can. I try do do one thing and tell a different story with my eyes. I believe what's more interesting is always what's not being said.

The thing I miss the most about Scotland is the football.

Vancouver's a very child friendly city, there's... no doubt about that.

When I look back at my past and the way I grew up, I grew up on communes. That was meant to be.