Murphy: "For me it's always been about the stories, not what medium. The medium is secondary to the stories."

Murphy: "If you behave like a celebrity, then people will treat you like a celebrity, and if you don't, they won't. There's not much to write about me in the tabloids."

Murphy: "I hope that I have gained some wisdom, but I don't know. I have kids, and that certainly puts things into perspective. I think I'm a more patient person. I hope I'm a more patient person. I'm a little more relaxed about the peripheral side of this business, which I used to find very confusing and alarming."

Murphy: "Patience is something that, as a young man, I didn't have - when waiting for parts to arrive or waiting for people to behave as I wanted them to."

Murphy: "I don't have a burning passion to live in America per se but I would certainly like to work there."

Murphy: "Men and women are custodians of this society, and we both decide what's going to happen for our future. I feel that very, very strongly."

Murphy: "I'd probably have been wealthier if I had stayed with law, but pretty miserable doing it."

Murphy: "I think there's such a thing, as a performance gene. If it's in your DNA it needs to come out. For me it originally came out through music, then segued into acting and came out through there. I always needed to get up and perform."

Murphy: "My whole career has been completely random and haphazard."

Murphy: "For me, it's about being at home and living a life. Taking the dog for a walk, doing the shopping, emptying the dishwasher, going for a run."

Murphy: "42 is a really boring age, isn't it?"

Murphy: "I remember being 18 and being fed up with everything - fed up with society, fed up with the political system, fed up with myself - and then you kind of go, 'Actually, this voting thing is amazing,' because you have a chance to change it, right?"

Murphy: "If someone asks a stupid question, you can only give a stupid answer or appear arrogant."

Murphy: "It was very much about performances, the whole ensemble thing was just great - everybody working together. Sometimes it didn't feel like a film set. It wasn't technically driven, it was very, very enjoyable."

Murphy: "Journalists have a myopic view of your versatility. They're like 'You only play the creep'."

Murphy: "You hear a lot of actors saying, 'I'd never go to Hollywood and sell out.' But, if it's a good script and a good director, why not? To shut oneself off completely is, I think, very limiting."

Murphy: "Having started out in theatre, I feel an impulse to do it as much as I can."

Murphy: "A director, I forget who, told me that it takes 30 years to make an actor. And I believe that. You have to learn your craft, learn your trade - and also you have to live a life and experience things."

Murphy: "What we do as actors is we go through phases where you superficially learn all this information."

Murphy: "I know I am old-fashioned, but I don't want to bring out a fashion line, I don't want to bring out an album. I just want to do the work as best as I can, and if that effects change for somebody, then that is great. I don't want to change the world."

Murphy: "I personally think if something's not a challenge there's no point doing it because you're not gonna learn much."

Murphy: "I don't consider myself a shy person necessarily, but there's something about getting under the skin of a character and allowing you an abandon or a sense of courage that you would never have in your own life."

Murphy: "I'm terrible. I'm the wrong person to talk to, I really don't know a thing."

Murphy: "I've always been an actor who works in every medium - I've worked in theater and film and television - I've never seen any difference between the three."

Murphy: "I've said this before: myself and Tommy Shelby, he's the most unlike-me character I have ever played."

Murphy: "I think any actor that says 'I never watch my films' is a liar because you have to watch it at least once and also you're going to watch it when you're doing your ADR."

Murphy: "It's embarrassing sometimes, the way actors or musicians sometimes get made untouchable."

Murphy: "Sociopath is a word that has sort of become shorthand for psychopath and there's a distinct difference, it's interesting if you look it up. Sociopath if you look at the medical definition, the profile of a sociopath is that they are supremely intelligent people that are also pathological liars, they have no moral structure and there is one more, they have no compassion or empathy for other people."

Murphy: "I enjoy all aspects of it, I don't have a preference for any medium. I think each of them has its attractions and I would hope they each inform the other in some way."

Murphy: "I will always love film, the romance of film, sitting in the darkened room with strangers and watching a story for two hours - that will always remain and never be eroded by television."

Murphy: "I like being at home with my music and my books. I’ve done all the partying, I’ve done enough partying for four or five people as a young fella. But now I like the quiet life."

Murphy: "I'm not interested in a good man's life. I'm interested in contradiction."

Murphy: "After kids, the desire to improve as an actor remains, but time becomes hugely important. I want to do good work and do it well but then be at home. I love hanging out with my children, seeing how they behave, and stealing ideas off them. You can't do that if you're in a hotel, on a plane, or a film set. It's not real life."

Murphy: "I'm interested in pressure, I'm interested in duress. All the great works of art, or film or literature, in my opinion, have elements of those in them."

Murphy: "And once you're unafraid with death, I think your capacity for violence is immediately increased. Once you're unafraid of death, you are a very, very dangerous adversary"

Murphy: "I think there's such a thing as a performance gene. If it's in your DNA it needs to come out. For me, it originally came out through music, then segued into acting and came out through there. I always needed to get up and perform."