John Hurt

Really, I'm only alive out of curiosity. I'm very curious about where we're all marching.

I don't think you automatically become an enlightened person because you are a daddy. But they will change you, of course - their understanding of you puts you in a different place.

I'm horribly self-critical.

I have lots of favourite memories but I can't say that I have a favourite film.

One thing that is likely to make you lose touch is if you keep in touch with the past too much.

How my film career happened, I don't know. It was unplanned. I'd been in films and TV throughout the Sixties and early Seventies, but it was really 'The Naked Civil Servant' in 1975 that put me on the radar.

I knew I didn't want to pursue an academic career at all, which, of course, my father would have loved me to have done. I didn't want to go to university. The only other thing I could do was paint, and so I went to art school because they couldn't conceive of how one would be an actor.

It's quite a dangerous career move to go wilfully on making films that may not find a distributor.

The most difficult thing about painting is the self-discipline. When I finish a job, I give myself a few days, but then I have to discipline myself quite fiercely if I want to do some painting that's worthwhile. Otherwise, you're just doodling. It's much easier when you're just told what you have to do.

I never had any ambition to be a star, or whatever it is called, and I'm still embarrassed at the word.

It would be difficult to have any unfulfilled ambitions because I don't have any ambitions. I've never been that kind of performer.

I've always felt, and I think I'm qualified to say so because I've won a few awards, that it's a terrible shame to put something in competition with something else to be able to sell something.