Antony Sher

I have a Woody Allen Jewish attitude to life: that it's all going to be disastrous. That it hasn't all been that way is simply down to some random quirk of fate.

As a gay Jewish white South African, I belong to quite a lot of minority groups. You constantly have to question who you are, what you are and whether you have the courage to be who you are.

When I'm painting and drawing I only do people. Acting is obviously portraiture - and writing is as well.

I never regret things. It's a really dangerous thing to say, but for anyone involved in the arts, the bad things that happen make for good material. It's not a comfortable truth, but it is true.

I don't believe in an afterlife.

It's good for actors to confront those things we have to act: panic, pain and death.