Clive Owen

Clive (on James Bond): It's easy to keep saying no to a role you're not being offered. If they really had offered? I don't know. It's possible I would have said yes. It's possible. But they never asked so we'll never really know.

Clive: Bond was the best thing that never happened to me. I was never in the running but the more I said so, the more people thought I had it in the bag. What's so funny about it all is my career in Britain was in really bad shape at the time, but my agents pretty much built me a new one in America by playing up all the Bond stories. All I had to do was keep on telling people I was never going to be Bond. I'd like to think I made it on talent, but it's really just dumb luck. If I hadn't worn that tux in Croupier, I'd still be begging for the parts Robson Green turned down on cop shows.

Clive: I don't do emotion. Emotions are overrated. I'm more interested in creating a presence.

Clive (on his fear of badgers): I've never been bitten by one or anything like that, they just look evil to me. Even watching The Wind in the Willows they scared me. It was like the Devil staring straight into my eyes. It's something I've never outgrown. Even today, just the thought of badgers absolutely terrifies me. Hell to me is a room full of badgers.

Clive (on Daniel Craig): I think when Craig first took the (James Bond) part he got a pretty rough ride, which to a certain extent is inevitable because there are so many different people who have so many different ideas about something like that. You are never going to please everybody. The thing that is really exciting is that he is a proper actor. He is not shallow or posing, they have cast a really serious actor and I think that when the film comes out everyone will see what a great choice he was.

Clive Owen: Theatre uses a different energy. It's like going to the gym and having a vigorous workout. But every few years is enough because I love filming. I am a real film animal.

Clive: I've never felt the need to up sticks and relocate to Hollywood. So many films are made in Europe now, and that allows me to stay in the UK. I have my home in London and I have a weekend house in Essex. It means that I'm never that far away from the family. They can visit me on set. For me, London is, and always will be home. I've been there for 20 years, ever since I went to drama school. I can't really imagine living anywhere else.

Clive: I've never felt the need to up sticks and relocate to Hollywood. So many films are made in Europe now, and that allows me to stay in the UK. I have my home in London and I have a weekend house in Essex. It means that I'm never that far away from the family. They can visit me on set. For me, London is, and always will be home. I've been there for 20 years, ever since I went to drama school. I can't really imagine living anywhere else.

Clive Owen: (on how his career has taken off in Hollywood) I am amazed but I am also working hard and working a lot. I'm going to take a very sizeable break soon because I ended up in this situation where I made four films back to back. There were always things I wanted to do, like go on holidays, but there were these projects and people I wanted to work with which kept cropping up. I do need to take a long break after this because it's not an ideal way of working. I am one of those actors who really likes to prepare for their films. I don't like them to come at me that fast. But I really wanted to do this one.

Clive Owen: (on working with Denzel Washington in "Inside Man") For me, he has the massive stature of a full-blown movie star and he's a really good, fine, intelligent actor. He's got the whole thing. For a long time, he's been one of the main serious leading men. He's been around in movies for a long time and I've always respected and liked him since I first saw his work. He has always had this presence and intelligence in everything he does.

Clive Owen: (on working with Spike Lee) I have never encountered shooting in both directions at the same time. It's like making six movies at once. And it makes the whole process much more alive somehow. The rhythm becomes unpredictable. He shoots two actors in a scene at the same time even if one is off-camera so the material can be used later, like for the DVD. The phone calls between Denzel Washington and I, for example, were both shot live as we were literally on the phone. We had two cameras, one shooting him, one shooting me. It's faster as well. Spike is very dynamic on the set, and very sure about what he wants. We shot the whole film in 31 days I think.

Clive Owen: (on why he decided to appear in "Inside Man") Well, I am a huge fan of Spike Lee's, so I was really thrilled to be in his movie. I think he's one of the most distinctive voices in movies. And he put together such an incredible cast. I had a great time.

Clive Owen: Theater is like exercise. I feel it's healthy. But I don't love it as much as movies. A bad experience in the theater can be so depressing. You've got to do it every night, even if the production is not working.

Clive Owen: When I was 10 or 11, I played the Artful Dodger in a school production of Oliver. From that point forward, I said I wanted to be an actor. Nobody in my family took it seriously, but I saw no other path. I was a cocky little kid. This one teacher said: 'You're a working-class kid from Coventry. What do you know?'

Clive Owen: Theatre uses a different energy. It's like going to the gym and having a vigorous workout. But every few years is enough because I love filming. I am a real film animal.

Clive Owen: I've never been interested in playing good guys. I'm always attracted to dangerous characters. Those roles are usually far more interesting and I hold no fears about doing them. With my character in Croupier, you're never really sure where he's coming from. He's not really a good guy or a bad guy. But people generally aren't, are they?

Clive: When i think about the future of my children, i sometimes wonder where this world is going to.

Clive Owen: You go back to those films of the '40s and '50s and hear the dialogue, the way the people played off each other, the wordplay. I think we've really lost that in movies.

Clive Owen: One of the things I'm most proud of about my career is the fact I've managed to keep options open.

Clive Owen: I don't think you necessarily identify and believe in the motifs of the character, but you have to want to play it and want to commit to the lines.

Clive Owen: I think it could definitely be disturbing. It's taken the central theme and it's definitely the same story, but the elements of the book have been changed quite a lot. It's still set 30 years in the future and the conceit is still the same, that no one has had a baby anywhere for eighteen years and our reluctant hero has ended up linked with the only pregnant girl on the planet. That's still the same, but Alfonso's done a really fascinating, unusual exploration of where things could be going, and that's still very, very strong in the movie. It's a very unusual take. People are assuming it's a sci-fi movie but it's almost the opposite of that. It's like now, but worse. It's the environment we're living in. It's not futuristic. It's like things have not ended up that great and we're in a world where there are no children, which is a pretty bleak place. Half the movie's a chase movie, really, but it's in a really extraordinary vision of the future.

Clive Owen: Oh no, we definitely weren't there together. In fact, much as I would have liked to, I didn't even get to meet the guy. But I do understand that he was there at the show.

Clive Owen: He's a very inspired choice for a movie like this because he's very specific and precise and he's very psychologically clear, ... And for a movie like this, which you could do very bombastically -- a big, crash-bang-wallop thriller -- you knew that he would pitch it so that everything would be very objective and clear.

Clive Owen: I never saw it coming. You know, you very often read a thriller and you can see where it's heading or things are spelled out too clearly or they're so clever in their twist and turns that it's all a bit contrived and you really don't buy the situation.

Clive Owen: A terrible thing happens and it's a nightmare that begins and just seems to spiral out of control.

Clive Owen: often attracted to people with conflicts or flawed people because they're more interesting. There's something very attractive about playing an ordinary guy trying to cope with extraordinary things. He's a flawed human being struggling.

Clive Owen: I think it's the most successful bedding in of computer technology and people I've ever seen in a movie.

Clive Owen: Julia Roberts couldn't be nicer.

Clive Owen: Frank Miller was worried it would be tempered down; it wouldn't be quite what he originally intended. Robert Rodriguez went to him and said, 'I'm going to be incredibly faithful to your original material,' shot a five-minute test. Frank said, 'I'm in. Let's do it.

Clive Owen: I think I am more attracted to characters with a subtext, whatever that is and they don't necessarily have to be virtuous, but they have to at least be human.

Clive Owen: The sexiest part of the body is the eyes. That's what I believe.

Clive Owen: Parenthood and family come first for me, and when I'm not working I'm cool with the Teletubbies.

Clive Owen: My gardening skills are awful.

Clive Owen: I'm not the kind of actor who goes into exhaustive research for each role.

Clive Owen: I'm not normally one to commit to a long-running series.

Clive Owen: I love to mix it up. I love to keep doing different things.

Clive Owen: I just like to keep challenging myself, keep it varied. It's a craft, and I'm constantly trying to learn and get better at it.

Clive Owen: I don't think you necessarily identify and believe in the motifs of the character, but you have to want to play it and want to commit to the lines.

Clive Owen: For several years I did have the Chancer label around my neck, but it's never really worried me.

Clive Owen: The sexiest part of the body is the eyes. Corny, but that's what I believe. They're what connect us as human beings.

Clive Owen: The lighter stuff has got to be really well written for me, or it just doesn't get me going. There's something to play if there's conflict going on. Whatever that conflict is, that's where drama is; if the character is grappling with something you've got something to play, there's layers to it. And when that isn't there it's ... less interesting.