"You learn very early, or you learn never, if you're an actor. You sit in front of that mirror at the Theatre Royal, Bristol, in 1958 and learn that that is the meat. You can't be self-conscious about [your face]. If you are, you're dead.

"The rest is self-consciousness and nightmare. I've watched actors I know -- who are not really actors, but they get away with it in the movies -- and they spend their life not being able to bear their profile, poor sods. It's the vain who get ****ed up. I've never thought about it." -- Venus star Peter O'Toole speaking to interviewer Jasper Reeds in last Sunday's London Times.