In the late '70s, maybe just before I started, there was still an attitude that if you did film you didn't do TV and vice versa, but that's gone now.

- Robert Carlyle

I want to keep audiences off balance, so they don't know who I am or how to take me. If I duck and weave, as Frank Bruno might say, I'll have a longer shelf life.

- Robert Carlyle

I have a reputation for being an improvisational actor, which is true, but I also know what I'm doing so that if the improvisational strand doesn't work I can go back to what I know's already there.

- Robert Carlyle

Every actor I think has got their own number of takes that they like, you know. Some actors like to go all day, you know on the one scene and some actors want to take two takes. I personally like four.

- Robert Carlyle

People go to the movies to watch a film and all they're thinking about is the actress's cellulite they saw in a magazine.

- Robert Carlyle

My wife was a make-up artist, and she's a total product junkie. Our bathroom is packed full of lotions and potions so I end up trying them out.

- Robert Carlyle

My dad was rubbish at all other aspects of his financial life, but he's pretty good at paying the rent.

- Robert Carlyle

It took a long time for me to accept I was an actor, a professional actor, and that, actually, I make a living out of this.

- Robert Carlyle

It depends who the director is you know, I mean Ken Loach for instance. I've done up to 32 takes with him.

- Robert Carlyle

In troubled times the last thing you want to do is to stick your money into a film. It's such a gamble.

- Robert Carlyle

People in Scotland appreciate homegrown talent, but it's getting harder and harder to get films made in Britain.

- Robert Carlyle

If there's anything you want to ask your parents, ask them before they go, because once they go, they're gone.

- Robert Carlyle

I've always taken my love of children from my father. He was a children magnet. Suddenly, having my first child hit home what my dad went through.

- Robert Carlyle

I'd work with Danny Boyle every day of the week. No matter what he was doing I would do that.

- Robert Carlyle

I'd love to play some kind of fop.

- Robert Carlyle

I'd love to do a Columbo-type detective character in a series.

- Robert Carlyle

I was 16 when I was in a band, for about 10 minutes. I went off and did acting after that. So it was a wee moment for me when I sang.

- Robert Carlyle

I used to be a rabid reader, but now it's scripts or nothing - network television is quite relentless, and you can't drop the ball.

- Robert Carlyle

I think you should only wear jewellery if it has a story behind it.

- Robert Carlyle

I think I have a natural, if I can say that, got a kind of natural ability in comedy.

- Robert Carlyle