Rhys Ifans Quotes

When I was eleven, my mother gave me Robert K. Massie's 'Nicholas and Alexandra.' It was the first 'grownup' book I read, and I loved it.

I'm hoping to do a Broadway musical on the life of Rasputin. He's someone I can definitely identify with.

It's hard for me not to have a great deal of compassion for the last Romanov family because, really, I don't know if a politically savvy ruler would have been able to make the situation turn out much differently.

The collapse of Russia was the second great event of 1917.

I reread 'Nicholas and Alexandra' in my early twenties, and I never forgot the story.

Lenin had just reflected that the revolution would never happen in his lifetime when in February 1917, hungry crowds in Petrograd overthrew Nicholas II while the revolutionaries were abroad, exiled, or infiltrated by the secret police.

Every actor, I don't care what they say, their roles are a lot more interesting than we are, and at the end of the day, it's still entertainment or fantasy. I think we can learn a lot from the characters we play and I find that the characters are even more noble than myself.

I have roles in plays that I hope that I'll be able to do one day. I might be doing them at, like, the East Wilton Playhouse in wherever. But I think that Edie Falco... to get something even resembling her type of roles, that would be amazing.

I teethed on books of heroes such as Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln and King David.

In the account book of the Great War the page recording the Russian losses has been ripped out. The figures are unknown. Five millions, or eight? We ourselves know not.

Rasputin's daughter understands the revolution. She would have been an outsider, a spectator in the royal family and to the revolution.

I was raised by maternal grandparents who were born in 1890 and 1899, respectively. They were British subjects; George V was the cousin of the tsar. The Romanovs were very real in their household.

But no, I don't think I'm particularly drawn to the period roles or the medieval roles.

The memoirs of the Grand Duchess Olga are an entertaining record for anyone interested in the imperial family's home life during the last years of Russian autocracy.

I really wanted to go Russia. I'm really interested in Russian history, so I'd like to go and put a face to what I've read.

You don't get roles like leading character in 'Christine' very often because people don't really like women on film to be unlikable. I think Christine is lovable, but I don't think she's likable. I think there's a fundamental difference. For me, those are the richest ones. Men have had a career of doing those kind of things.

I think with actors, we tend to get rid of characters - and not get rid of them as in discard them or throw them away, but it's just that you take that jacket off because you're going to be putting a different jacket on.

I love playing different characters. I just do. I want to play even more quirky and interesting characters and just something that people wouldn't automatically think that I would be. I want to go against the grain a bit and I'm hoping people will be open-minded enough to cast me in stuff that's going against the grain.

I think I've grown up in an era where character acting on film has become less desirable for the producers and directors and therefore the audience. They have got used to the people that those actors really are.

He's [Jesus] the most fascinating character in history, really - the character who's made more difference to the world than anyone since him. I daresay that Muslims would say Muhammad was that character, but I think Jesus had a sort of 600-year start on him.

I think that the best characters are the ones who both manage to be attractive and repulsive at the same time.

I think when you're looking for scripts or for characters around your own age, a lot of the times they don't have the kind of responsibility that is usually seen in parts that are older for you.

I think just about everyone is doing something that's completely different from what you've seen them do before or a stretch in some way. Like Brandon Routh is so funny, he's awesome. And Chris Evans is hilarious. I mean, he's always funny but just in this character, it's like, I mean I could barely stop laughing on a single take, it was unbelievable. So I think everybody's going to be really, really happy with all the [exes?].

[Lauren Ambrose's] character [in Can't Hardly Wait] feels real and unexaggerated and becomes sort of a heroine archetype. I think that was cool. It wasn't in every one of those comedies.

I think that a lot of the time I don't go for something in particular. I see what comes to me, I filter it out. I never really strive to play a particular character or do a particular genre of film. As long as it's a good script and a great range of people and my character is really interesting I can't see any reason not to do it.