When I see David Attenborough talking about how chimps live, big apes, I just remember my dad and the way he'd look at you. He couldn't speak, but everything else about him was, 'This is us, a family.' Relationships are just as intense as they are for people who can speak. Probably more so.

Richard Griffiths

Categorized in : People Talking Dad

I've had a year out of work, more, and just toughed it out. There are those who think that all actors are overpaid. I beg to differ.

Richard Griffiths

actors years thinking

Broadway has the most savvy audience anywhere. They see everything and they know their theater. As sophisticated and subtle as you think you can be, the houses you get here will want something finer.

Richard Griffiths

want-something house thinking

It's been the most astonishing year because I've been having a marvelous adventure, and yet I kind of sympathize with people who have to live in exile, because I've so missed England.

Richard Griffiths

adventure years travel

Winning is something you've dreamed about and hoped for, so that when you get there it's no big deal. But if you lose you're gutted, and the gutted sense just goes on, and I know what that's like, because I've been having that gutted feeling since 1979.

Richard Griffiths

goes-on winning feelings

If I were dictator, I'd have a catch-all crime of disrespect.

Richard Griffiths

dictator disrespect crime

I hated my childhood. It was loathsome. My parents were deaf and dumb. Profoundly so. They could make noises when they were emotionally aroused, but they couldn't form it into speech.

Richard Griffiths

childhood dumb parent

My father taught me things about body language that psychologists have been catching up with ever since. He always knew when I was lying, because my posture was all wrong.

Richard Griffiths

body father lying

I trained as an artist originally, so I know what a nice human body looks like, and I would like to look like that notion, and of course I never will. But I've got past that.

Richard Griffiths

nice artist past

I've always hated the way I looked.

Richard Griffiths

hated way

I hate being the subject of photographs.

Richard Griffiths

i-hate hate photograph

I think there are people watching me, and if ever I manage to save £1,000 there's someone saying, 'Oh, we'll invent a tax to take that off him'.

Richard Griffiths

taxes people thinking

My vanity is not remotely physical, it is cerebral. I suppose feeling self-conscious might be a form of vanity, though.

Richard Griffiths

vanity self feelings

Some actors don't mind it. Those who are pretty. They think it's nice to be looked at because they are nice to look at. I appreciate that. I'm very happy to salute that aspiration. But I don't like the way I look so I don't like being photographed. I become defensive.

Richard Griffiths

appreciate nice thinking

I wouldn't inflict my naked body on any paying audience.

Richard Griffiths

audience naked body

I like playing Vernon Dursley in 'Harry Potter,' because that gives me a license to be horrible to kids. I hate the odious business of sucking up to the public.

Richard Griffiths

hate giving kids

I went from being a beanpole - like a normal kid of the 1950s - and exploded. The weight piled on and didn't stop until into my adulthood.

Richard Griffiths

normal weight kids

I was big and fat and had weird parents.

Richard Griffiths

fats bigs parent

Happy birthday! Hope your 50s will be as awesome as your 40s.

Richard Griffiths

50th-birthday age birthday

I don't like the way I look so I don't like being photographed. I become defensive.

Richard Griffiths

looks way

I don't think I'd live in London unless you paid me. Nine figures would be nice.

Richard Griffiths

nice would-be thinking