As children, we all hold on to the myth of omnipotence. Comics are successful because kids identify with superheroes. They’ll read a book or watch a TV programme and say, ‘I’m that guy.’ And that guy is always the one in control. – Eddie Marsan
Acting was a way of me finding myself, which I think is the case of a lot of actors, regardless of where they come from. – Eddie Marsan
As a working-class actor, leaving school with no qualifications, being a printer and then becoming an actor and then working with people who to a certain extent had had a leg up. I never had that advantage. It’s less an artistic need to express myself and more a need to prove myself. – Eddie Marsan
When I first started doing press, one of the things people started pushing was this idea that I’d somehow escaped something. And I was really offended, because I hadn’t escaped anything. – Eddie Marsan
I’m used to being in front of camera and knowing what to think. But if you’re asking me to be me, I get very self-conscious. My job isn’t to be me. Being an actor, people think you can do a eulogy at a funeral, a speech at a wedding. I find all that very nerve-racking. – Eddie Marsan
If your character doesn’t express himself or doesn’t feel confident expressing himself, then you don’t express yourself. – Eddie Marsan
I thought ‘Lock Stock’ was a good film. I thought ‘Lock Stock’ was a good film because I think it was a one-off before it was imitated a hundred times. – Eddie Marsan
When I was a struggling actor, I worked for a party company. One of my friends from school was working for an advertising agency, and I turned up to one of his company’s parties dressed as an alien to collect tickets on the door. – Eddie Marsan
Mr. Norrell is like a librarian trying to do magic… That’s the story of my career, really. I stand next to good looking men and make them look better! – Eddie Marsan
I went swimming the other day and my wife was watching and she said, ‘You know, it’s funny, it’s when you’ve got no clothes on, no one recognizes you.’ I said, ‘What are you saying? That I should do more love scenes?’ – Eddie Marsan
Private education can give you confidence, which is marvellous; a sense of entitlement isn’t. – Eddie Marsan
You turn up on set, and somebody who has come out of Oxford, has done a BBC course, is telling you how to act. You think, ‘Do me a favour. Go and make a coffee.’ – Eddie Marsan
I’m very blue collar myself. So it was easy for me to embody that in a sense. It’s much harder for me to embody Norrell than it is to embody Terry Donovan. – Eddie Marsan
If you leave me waiting ’round for hours and then call on me to do something, I need to be able to do it straight away. That’s my job, like your job is to do what you do. – Eddie Marsan
When I was doing fringe theatre, my ambition was to do repertory. When I got to rep it was to do national theatre; then it was t,o get a couple of parts in television. I never had this great desire to overreach myself. I was too busy enjoying acting. I was just obsessed with it. – Eddie Marsan
