Ian McShane Quotes

"I don't believe in the death penalty, but I understand personal vengeance."

"The bad boy: always more fun."

"What you do is, you just do the gig, enjoy, get on with it, and treat the rest as horse doodle."

"There's only two kinds of actors - good ones and bad ones... and lucky ones and unlucky ones."

"I think the reason 'Sexy Beast' was so good was it wasn't just another run-of-the-mill gangster film; it was a love story."

"When you're doing a medieval show like 'Pillars,' it starts off a bit like a school play. You're all in funny costumes; you've had your coffee, and you say, 'Good morning'. Then you go on set and, if you've got good actors and directors, it takes on a life of its own."

"Do you follow American politics? They hate Obama. Hate him. He's a black man. That's what it is: it's racist. This guy is no bleeding-heart liberal. He's a centrist."

"I'm from the disco era where everybody thought they were John Travolta... What song is going to get me on the dance floor? Anything from 'Saturday Night Fever,' and you're up there like a demon."

"The bad boys get all the best lines."

"My dad was a football player - a soccer player - for Manchester United, and I loved playing football, but I also happened to be the guy in class who was pretty good at sight reading. My teacher gave me scripts, and I was very comfortable."

"Seventy years old! How did that happen? I was part of the generation that wasn't going to die."

"I come from the liberal side of thinking: Better one guilty man should walk free than one innocent man found guilty."

"Blackbeard is probably the most infamous pirate who ever lived. He's one of those characters for which most of your work is done before you start."

"I don't remember my first two marriages... the details are very sketchy."

"You don't particularly want to stay close to your ex-wife. Or why would she be your ex-wife?"

"Acting's boring."

"I mean, I'm an actor. I do what comes along."

"I'm a child of the Sixties."

"I had a bit of a male menopause. It started at the age of 18 and continued until I was 45."

"Every actor has to love and loathe the character he plays."

"Bosses will tell you they are looking for something different but they're not, actually."

"As long as the cheques carry on coming in, and I'm enjoying my work, I shall continue acting."

"When you're in your early 20s, you go ahead and do everything. And it's very hard to judge yourself."

"Theater is a dance of a different kind, a dance of rawness and characters stripped down."

"I don't do social media."

"'Lovejoy' has a special place in my heart because it was through my efforts that the series first came to the screen."

"What's great about acting is you can let all your wackiness hang out while you work."

"Robert Fisk is my hero. In America, they think he's a terrorist."

"My second marriage was to a girl I met in Manchester, kept a long-distance relationship going for two years, then we got married... disaster."

"My daughter said, 'I don't think granddad really suits you.'"