Antony Sher

I love playing outsiders, I always do. ”

Life is just more comfortable if you're honest and open about everything. I spent so many years being in the closet about one thing or another. ”

I have a Woody Allen Jewish attitude to life: that it's all going to be disastrous. That it hasn't all been that way is simply down to some random quirk of fate. ”

As a gay Jewish white South African, I belong to quite a lot of minority groups. You constantly have to question who you are, what you are and whether you have the courage to be who you are. ”

When I'm painting and drawing I only do people. Acting is obviously portraiture - and writing is as well. ”

I never regret things. It's a really dangerous thing to say, but for anyone involved in the arts, the bad things that happen make for good material. It's not a comfortable truth, but it is true. ”

I don't believe in an afterlife. ”

It's good for actors to confront those things we have to act: panic, pain and death. ”