If you find yourself always playing the villain, or if you find yourself being typecast into a corner where you’re not happy then that’s probably rather miserable, but if I have been typecast I am quite happy about it. – James Purefoy
Violence is a very ugly thing. Violence is often so casual on film, and made to look so cool and so sexy, but violence is a repulsive, repugnant act that human beings inflict on each other. It shouldn’t seem to be cool and sexy, ever really. – James Purefoy
I’m on record saying that HBO is the best television company in the world, and I believe they are. I think they absolutely understand how to make television that is really, really vital and interesting and visceral, and all the things that television really should be. – James Purefoy
If you look around us, there are an awful lot of men out there, and women, but mostly men, who believe that they have got a fast-track path to Heaven, if they do the things that they believe God is telling them to do, and I don’t just mean Islamic people. I mean Fundamentalist Christians. – James Purefoy
Dieting isn’t complicated: if you eat 2,000 calories, you have to burn it off; simple as that. – James Purefoy
Decide very early on: do you want to be an actor or do you want to be famous? Because they’re very different routes. – James Purefoy
There are only a few TV networks that really invest in production in the way that I think they should. HBO, obviously, is one of them. – James Purefoy
British actors are pretty good, by and large, at turning on at ‘action’ and off at ‘cut.’ – James Purefoy
One of the things I like about doing historical films is drawing the line between now and then. – James Purefoy
I really do want to just be able to sit in the corner of the pub with my friends… to just be an actor and still go to the supermarket and not get bothered. – James Purefoy
One of the great things about being an actor is that you have a completely different challenge every few months. – James Purefoy
Hospitals are very extreme places – you can be in a maternity room one minute, and by someone’s bedside as they’re dying the next. – James Purefoy
I do live a weirdly divided life, because I’m not a Hollywood superstar, I don’t live on Malibu Beach, I don’t do massive ‘OK!’ spreads, I don’t go to premieres and parties that much. – James Purefoy
