All the great novels, all the great films, all the great dramas are fictions that actually tell us the truth about us or about human nature or about human situations without being tied into the minutia of documentary events. Otherwise we might as well just make documentaries.
As an actor, you ask yourself what you can do to put yourself in a position where you can play that role.
He has such a patronizing tone and manner, and such a sarcastic sense of humor. I found him rather brutal, a kind of elegant brutality which appealed. No, I think he came pretty much off the page.
I always want to do things that are different. I don't want to be doing the same thing, the same performance constantly, and it feels like most people tell you that they are the same. However different you feel might approach them.
I came across a very smart, very bright little independent movie a while back, and I'd met the writer and director years ago. I heard that they'd offered it to three enormous male names for a ridiculously low fee. Studios will only take risks, with huge star for a tenth of his normal salary.
I did decide that you have to put your name about a bit, and so, although I would have preferred to have never done publicity or an interview or a fashion shoot for a magazine or a chat show.
I don't consider 41 being in prime of life. Even if I conceived a child tomorrow I'd be 52 by the time it was 10. I'm not sure I'd have the energy, and I find that quite scary.
I don't have the energy or the mental security to get involved with all that. I think it's a good idea to be able to disappear into the story, so that the first thing the audience sees isn't you, but the part.
I never want to sort of put all the cards on the table all at once, because that's somehow there's always a journey to go on. There's always something to be revealed, in my mind, about characters.
I read about this hotel that was great, down in the south of the island, not in a touristy area. I had no particular desire ever to go to Jamaica, but I thought, what the hell? Sounds nice. Let's go!
I think one probably absorbs things like a sponge and things emerge without your always being aware of it.
I was born in 1961. Now I think the 16 years that elapsed between 1961 and the end of the wars is nothing. To a child growing up it felt like an eternity, an entirely different world.
I would have loved to have met some former spies, but they don't readily advertise themselves unless they're not living in Moscow, and even then. I'm sure I've met some without realizing it.
I'd always liked the idea that drama acts at its best as a kind of arena for debate, not just about the thing itself, but also producing aesthetic, stylistic, political and moral discussions.
I'm just a hired actor who was hired for a particular job, but I think one of the joys of reading the script was the way that the personal and the global are woven together.
I've never had a desire to be famous. Lots of actors are actually extremely shy. I have shy areas.
I've never had a huge circle of friends. I can't spread myself that thin and go 100 million miles an hour all the time. I choose to give truly of myself, entirely of myself, to the people I choose to do that with, and I can't do that with everyone.
I've never had an ambition to make that a part of my professional or personal life - I've done an awful lot of it, mainly in the States.
It's strange growing up in a very peaceable, comfortable, nonbellicose environment, unthreatened environment. While that had been was not present there, not long before.
It's taken me longer still to realize what a short span there is between those life experiences and the rest of your life. That's a job for the people who lived through it.
My dad served in the Air Force as ground crew for several years, and doesn't really talk about it. I know that it's there. I think my main thing about direct or indirect experiences as near to home as it were is the idea of self-sacrifice really.
National health service, education system, social security system, which seem to at its best, include everybody and support the idea of society which during, you know, the last 20 years or so has steadily been in decline, so it's the knock off from WWII has a very large impact.
Our attitudes have changed a lot, really, and so there's a certain toughness about it.
People will say that it's some kind of evasion, but I would never want to have a kid for me. I'd want to have the child for the child's sake, if that makes sense.
Surely the job of fiction is to actually tell the truth. It's a paradox that's at the heart of any kind of storytelling.
The discipline of the theatre, where everything backstage is clean and organised and stowed away, makes me think of being on board ship. And you are so determinedly fearless at that age.
The Jungian view of drama would be that it affects all of our imaginations and somehow taps into our hidden, ancient, primordial memories.
The space and light up there in Norfolk is wonderfully peaceful. I find myself doing funny things like gardening, and cooking, which I rarely do in London.
There's so much of, it could have been a very critical examination of what happened, and really the emotional lives of the people involved sort of carry the characters forward.
Years and years ago, when everyone knew that Pierce was going to be doing the job, they started selecting new people. I had this bizarre thing when I hadn't done many movies, and of going on for an interview.
You start to have, maybe if you have any sympathy for Wigram at all as a character it will be then, but it's quite late on.
In 2002, Jeremy & co. was nominated for the PFCS Award for Best Acting Ensemble for: Gosford Park (2001).
In 2000, Jeremy won the ALFS Award for British Actor of the Year for: Happy, Texas (1999).
In 2003, Jeremy won the International Fantasy Film Award for Best Actor for: Cypher (2002).
In 1999, Jeremy won the Best British Performance Award for: The Winslow Boy (1999) at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
In 2002, Jeremy won the Best Actor Award at the Catalonian International Film Festival, Sitges, Spain for: Cypher (2002).
Jeremy received his professional training at the Old Vic Theatre School, then worked his way through regional theater to the London stage.
Jeremy's family moved to Bristol, England in 1972.
Jeremy dated model Marie Helvan for a short time.
Jeremy once dated television presenter Donna Air.
Jeremy has a flat in Finsbury Park as well as a house three miles from the coast in Norfolk, England, UK.
Jeremy's mother, Rachel, died several years ago after a long running illness.
While Jeremy was playing the small role of Osric and understudying the title role in a 1989 production of Hamlet Jeremy replaced star Daniel Day-Lewis when the actor had a total breakdown in mid-performance.
Jeremy's parents are John and Rachel Northam.
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