Quotes By Jared Harris

People are fascinated by evil because it's mysterious and it doesn't seem to have a rationale behind it, and the second you say that Hannibal Lector was abducted as a child and he had to eat his sister or something like that, it becomes immediately mundane. The character becomes mundane.

I really wanted to get out of England.

I keep mementos from everything I've done. I've got my cab driver's license from 'Happiness.' I've got a pair of glasses and a belt buckle from playing John Lennon. I've got a pair of sunglasses from playing Andy Warhol... It's all in a box in the garage.

I've done quite a lot of dying on shows and in movies. To have a good death scene though - come on, it's brilliant. I love a good death scene!

Very few movies I've done I regret being involved in.

I remember thinking, 'I'll audition just once and if it doesn't work out I'll never think about it ever again.'

I think at some point every actor has practiced their acceptance speech while they're having a shower. It's fun.

When you're acting and you need to cry, you want to put yourself in a position where you're trying not to cry, because that is generally what people try and do. They try to hold on to their emotions, they don't want to lose them.

My father was a Catholic, but my mother wasn't. She had to do that weird deal you do as a Catholic - they deign to sanction your marriage and you have to bring your children up as Catholics.

I was beginning to think I was typecast in everyone's mind out there as a serial killer. I played a serial killer in one movie, I was the ghost of a serial killer in another and in a third, a computer-generated serial killer. The stage looks pretty good after those roles.

I never lost an argument and my parents assumed I would be a lawyer. They cast me in that role.

I used to do lots of independent films and for a while I was very content living in New York City and doing independent movies and off-Broadway theater. I loved it, I had a really good time doing that, and I worked on a lot of projects that are very dear to my heart, both plays and films.

I thought if I went somewhere where I didn't know anybody and they didn't know me I could start all over again.

I've auditioned for normal characters. But I never get cast.

'Mad Men' is a hard act to follow. Unless you're called Elisabeth Moss, stuff like this only comes along once in your career.

If you don't look like Rupert Graves or Hugh Grant, they'll have you playing the gardener.

I wasn't aware of my dad being an actor when I was young. I remember there was an Australian children's entertainer on television called Ralph Harris and when I'd say my father was an actor, kids would say, you know, 'oh, is he Ralph Harris?' And I had to say no and then they would lose interest.

It used to be that you could do these nuggets of a movie and it would attach itself in terms of credibility to your work and the style of work that you did, that people would be interested and curious about you and your work as an actor.

I think you always learn something in every character you play onstage, either personally or creatively.

I was 17, and all I wanted to do was to get away from England and the awful, boring boarding schools I'd been going to there. The last one was taught by monks, and I couldn't wait to get out.