“I saw David Lynch's 'The Elephant Man' when I was 15. I was completely...” — Ben Daniels Quote

I saw David Lynch's 'The Elephant Man' when I was 15. I was completely bowled over. I found it so beautiful, strange and mesmerizing that I went back to the cinema every night for a week to see it.

Lying about one's sexuality seems to be one of the ridiculous rules of what constitutes being a Hollywood movie star. Obviously, my own experience of working and continuing to work as an out gay actor is exactly that - working as an actor and not as a movie star. I don't think the two are the same.

I'm a great candidate for why arts funding shouldn't be cut, because I had no experience other than what was at school, I'm from a working-class town, there were no theaters, and the cinema closed when I was a kid. Anything that gave me a voice or a way to express myself I went running headlong toward.

I would never advise anyone to stay in the closet to further their careers - I'm sure it leads to big fat gay ulcers. There are actors I know who won't come out, and I can see it crippling them as human beings. It's a great shame that people can't be who they are in the 21st century, and people won't let them be who they are.

I always wanted to make cinema which will entertain the masses, cinema that could be called escapist but is mounted on a realistic scale with high production values.

In Indian cinema there are no professional voice trainers.

In cinema, the leading player is the director.

No, I like today's cinema a lot. But I've spent so many decades only making movies. There's so much that I still want to do. Like, live. It's only up to me.

I didn't go to the cinema a lot when I was young.