Martin freeman quotes

Disappointment is an endless wellspring of comedy inspiration.

What makes Shakespeare eternal is his grasp of psychology. He knew how to nail stuff about us as human beings.

There's a difference between the parts that I play and who I am and who people think I am. There's quite a big discrepancy sometimes between those things.

I'm not posh or common, I'm in between.

It's a bit like a fledgeling duck, finding your flippers.

Your job, as an actor, is never to just do what you're told. That's boring, and life is too short. It's your job to bring something, and it will either be to other people's taste or your own taste, and you have to try things out. Actors say, "Well, as long as the director's happy," but I don't believe that and I don't agree with that. I want the director to be happy, but if I'm not happy, I won't sleep at night.

I have a very extreme state of mind. Things are very black or very white.

If you are a plumber, you can work on a shed, or you can work on a mansion. It's just scale.

People misunderstand me.

Sherlock and Watson are a love story

However happy the director is, I have to be okay with it. I'm pretty strict with myself, about throwing things out or trying to be true to whatever the situation dictates.

I buy DVDs. I don't really buy CDs unless they're for other people.

I love home. I'd rather be at home than anywhere else.

I hope I inspire children to make films.

There is nothing far-fetched about disappointment as a subject for comedy. It's something we are all too familiar with.

I've got a stag weekend coming up and I've said I'm not doing anything more than a few drinks. I won't have it. I'll go home and watch Antiques Roadshow.

Not all Peter Greenaway's stuff is sequential, narrative story. Some of it is like an art installation and I'm not particularly interested in being in an art installation to be honest. I'm interested in the story.

All I can do is just do what I can do and not be hampered by knowing that some people won't like it.

My idea of a good night out is staying in.

Most actors are either a shower of bloody scruffs or think they should dress like Hamlet off stage.

I've been doing interviews for years, and in all that time, I've virtually never read one and gone, 'Yep, factually and tonally that's exactly what happened.' Pretty much never.

I'm one of the few people I know who believes in God.

I'm a big believer that life changes as much as you want it to.

I guess like any friendship, marriage, or whatever it is familiarity breeds more contempt, and more love. They're just more settled with each other now.

I like things that are simple, such as an alarm clock.

I love that pre-mod jazz look of the late Fifties, the Steve McQueen style that influenced the British modernists.

The one thing I've found is that someone always knows more than you do, including your babies. There are loads of things people presume I know about that I don't.

The great thing about getting older is that you learn not to care about being cool. I'm happy with who I am, I know what I like and I can't see myself changing… not for a little while, at least.

I look like the man in the moon.

On the one hand, we're constantly told about recycling and cutting back, and on the other hand we have to buy the next gadget that comes along three weeks after the last one you bought. It's absolutely insane. We've been suckered into buying and buying and upgrading and upgrading. We're being given two very different mantras at the moment, I think.

I've always got my eye on my deathbed.

Acting is the only thing I'm even vaguely good at and acting is something that I think I do know about.

Most people have a passive relationship with music and clothes, with culture. But music was my first contact with anything creative. Music is it, as far as I'm concerned.

Benedict (Cumberbatch, who is playing Sherlock) looks amazing. He's still got a Sherlockian silhouette, with a large overcoat, but in a classic cut. Watson dresses with an urban elegance, a touch of old school dashing, giving a feeling of both the military and medical profession. I suppose it's something they have in common as well. They're a bit metrosexual.

I only really watch my own films, I don't watch any other films and I don't particularly like any other actors.

I was probably cool around the end of 2002.

I can spot someone with similar fashion sense to me a mile off.

Why does everyone have to pretend to be stupid and not know long words?

I would wear a full-length cape if I could get away with it - I do love a good swirl in a fog.

I've always loved Christmas and that's not really gone away from me from being a child to now. It's always a magical time and I'm unashamed in my love for Christmas.

I don't think it was a surprise that I ended up as an actor, and it was anything but a disappointment.

Thank you, people of Emmyland. To be nominated in such company is an honour, especially for two shows that I’m immensely proud of. I’m delighted.

Every actor is riddled with insecurity, of course. But weirdly, I don't really find that I'd be daunted with taking on roles or anything.

I like bootcut jeans in a plain style with a nice line.

I like out, I like the outside world.

Like with anything, good writing suggest itself pretty strongly.

I value being able to go into a record shop and people leaving me alone.

Being a mod is more of a sensibility than a style.

True heroics, obviously, is not the absence of fear, but having that fear and doing something anyway.

I think if you were known for playing something other than being a nice guy then people might be a little less likely to take liberties with you. If you are Ray Winstone, and people have seen you kick a few people to death, then they are a little less likely to approach you or whatever.

You don't want your children to look at you like you are anything special other than their dad.

Name anything - high-definition TV, computer obsolescence - and I'm pretty much annoyed by it.

When I wear jeans I want to look like a man, not a child.

You could say I'm a mod, but with a small 'm'; I don't wear a parka, but I do question what I wear and what I listen to, which is what it's all about.

I like the idea of not everything happening between two human beings to be everyone's property.

Comedy can't be about continuous success.

I hate the fact that so much of our life is computerised rather than mechanised.