Richard E. Grant

I've been led by my nose all my life and tried to make perfume by boiling sugar water in jam jars and stuffing them full of gardenia and rose petals when I was growing up in Swaziland.

Lena Dunham is an extraordinary woman.

Smell is the shortest synaptic leap in the brain to our memory, and I'm amazed that people don't sniff everything.

Everything I dared dream of has come to fruition. Which is not to say that I don't grumble with the best of them, but the wobbles have been way outweighed by the wonders.

Proving yourself in a field where the casualty rate is so notoriously high is an ongoing challenge.

I've been an actor for so long, and a moviegoer ever since I can remember, because the country that I grew up in didn't have television.

I am drawn to writing and directing as it is most like the feeling I had when I was a teenager with my puppet theatre. You are more in control of everything and involved in every aspect of production, so more challenged and fulfilled.

If somebody crosses me, or if I love them, then it's pretty unequivocal; there's not much grey.

The Christmas tree goes up on December 1. I love it.

It always depresses me when people moan about how commercial Christmas is. I love everything about it. The tradition of having this great big feast, slap bang in the middle of winter, is an essential thing to look forward to at the end of the year.

I would love to play your common, everyday guy, but I never get cast as that.

Even 31 sounds quite old to me, because my brain is probably still in a state of adolescent delinquency.