John le Carre on Alec Guinness as George Smiley--

"But even in this flawed thing, Tinker, Tailor, with its good and bad scenes, what you see in Alec is some kind of dramatic extension of a religious belief. I think that his view of his role as that person was almost as a Jesuitical moderator in a sinful society. There was no talk of pleasure, not for Alec. His own life was forfeit. I think there was something at that age in Alec that was very, very moving and identifiable for him in the character. It was a very personal thing.

There's something called the actor's guilt, the feeling that you're playing with life - you're acting life but you're never living it. It can amount to a kind of puritanical self-hatred. I think part of the amazing range Alec produces in his face, and everywhere else, derives from that genuine, internal concern about his own identity."