Biografía

One of his biggest fans was Daniel Day-Lewis, who used to watch Postlethwaite perform on stage frequently during his impressionable years as a youngster. It was Day-Lewis who recommended him for the father role in En el nombre del padre (1993).

He is the only actor in Romeo + Julieta (1996) who speaks in iambic pentameter, the rhythm of speech William Shakespeare's plays are written in.

Steven Spielberg called him "The best actor in the world".

Postlethwaite's nose was broken when he played rugby as a child and was re-broken years later as an adult following several barroom brawls.

At the beginning of one hit wonder "Tubthumping" by Chumbawamba, it's his voice that says these words from the movie Tocando el Viento (1996): "Truth is I thought it mattered, I thought that music mattered. But does it bollocks! Not compared to how people matter".

At the end of the day, acting is all about telling lies. We are professional imposters and the audience accept that. We've made this deal that we tell you a tale and a pack of lies, but there will be a truth in it. You may enjoy it, or it will disturb you.

It's all in the cheekbones, this career of mine. They are quite whopping, aren't they? Who was it that said, 'He looks like he's got a clavicle stuck in his mouth?'

I refuse to be typecast, and I'll have a go at anything so long as it's different, challenging, hard work and demands great versatility.

My first agent wanted me to change [my name]. So I changed him instead. When I made a breakthrough as an actor, people started to say, 'Who's that bloke with the funny name?' They advised me to change it, saying it would never be put up in lights outside theaters because they couldn't afford the electricity. But I would never contemplate changing it. It's who I am. It's my mother and father, my whole family. It's where everything I am comes from. I couldn't imagine living my life with another name.

[in a speech to Ed Miliband, then Climate Change Minister of the Labour government, on 16 March 2009] If you commission a new dirty coal power station at Kingsnorth, then you are clearly unfit to represent the people of Britain at the Copenhagen Climate Summit, and therefore I promise, very sadly, to return to Her Majesty The Queen the OBE that I was given in 2002, because I don't believe that I can be a real Officer of the British Empire if that's what is going to happen. Unfortunately I would *never* be able to vote for the Labour Party again. And I want you to tell that to the Party.