The best thing an actor can be is ready. Be flexible, be ready.

I think back story can help guide your choices, but when you’re playing a scene, you’re not making choices; you’re just intuitive.

I was born William. My father was William. I came from a big family, I hated being called Billy. Willem’s a nickname; it’s a Dutch name, very common in the Netherlands.

Film is an editor’s medium. You can create very good raw material and they can make it horrible, or you can do not so well and they can make it beautiful. You don’t really know.

Emotionally men and women are different, but only as a result of the physical differences. It all comes back to our bodies.

I was watching ‘Wild at Heart,’ and I can honestly say I did nothing for that apart from show up!

I’ve been a prisoner and lived in prison for a while; I’ve been a missionary in China; I’ve been a vampire and a priest in Poland in World War II. I guess without bragging or...

There’s a real wisdom to not saying a thing.

I try to do as many of my own stunts as possible. If you keep on taking yourself out of the role you play, you lose the thread of the character.

The bad things about theatre get balanced by the good things in film and vice versa. So to tell you the truth, I love it when I can go back and forth – it feeds...

I love doing action and stuff; the problem is usually action movies are not that interesting. Also as I get older I feel like there’s less opportunities for me.

You have to lose yourself to find yourself.

I’ll never be able to really see a film that I’m in.

his approach to filmmakers and serving his stories.

Film is fragmented and gets into lots of other people’s hands. There are a lot of pleasures that theatre gives me. You get to perform uninterrupted.

I’m no different to anyone else; I want people to like me. I just don’t particularly want them to understand me.

Weirdness is not my game. I’m just a square boy from Wisconsin.

I love Sam Neill. The thing that I always say about him, and I think it’s true, is he’s so dry. When he’s serious, I think he’s joking; when he’s joking, I think he’s serious.

The mask can be a limitation, but you just deal with it. You do get superhuman strength and pumpkin bombs and all this other stuff to express yourself with.’

The director’s very important to me, particularly when the director has a recognizable style.

We’re making up a story that has certain resonance, and that resonance does pertain to what’s going on in the world. Any time a film does that, I think it’s worth doing.

I don’t think people want to see me as a regular guy; besides, I’m a regular guy in real life. I guess I just want to be reckless in my work.

I’ve never had any close male friends. The most important relationships in my life have always been with women.

The worst thing is to get involved with people who aren’t passionate about what they’re doing.

I’m an optimist. I hope if a movie’s good that it will be a success, but as we know, that’s not always true, just because of popular taste, advertising, distribution patterns – there’s lots of...

Sometimes I say I feel more like a dancer than an actor, because there are things implied about being an actor that I don’t really like. I feel more comfortable with the word ‘performer’. I...

Truth is, generally I like film festivals; somewhere at some level there’s an exchange of ideas.

[I] lie like the truth.

It’s no fun for an actor to keep repeating what you did before. It’s always changing. I’m changing. The target keeps moving. That’s the beauty of it.

In order to inhabit a character, you’ve got to embrace and empathise with them.

Action breeds inspiration more than inspiration breeds action.

It makes me laugh when I hear a guy talking about being in touch with his feminine side. But I gravitate towards women; I identify with them. And I do cry very easily, more and...

I guess they often cast me as the bad guy, because I’m not, er, conventional looking. I look sort of violent. I’m the odd one out, the outsider.

Turn off the sound in a movie, and if you can tell what’s going on, the movie should work.

some actors seek parts similar to their personalities. But, I prefer undergoing a metamorphosis that depends on the role.

Let’s hope I never end up on a deserted island, because I could never make a decision on which three CDs to take with me.

My dad was a surgeon, my mom a nurse, and they were always out working. I had five sisters and a brother. They didn’t care what I got up to.

I do want to be in mainstream movies that are going to be seen. I suppose it satisfies the showbiz side of me.

One of the pleasures of being an actor is quite simply taking a walk in someone else’s shoes. And when I look at the roles I’ve played, I’m kind of amazed at all the wonderful...

Sometimes I think women are lucky because they can develop in ways men can’t. The old-boy network may be oppressive to women, but it actually stunts men in terms of personal growth.

I knew very little about ‘Spider-Man’. I grew up more in the ‘Superman’ generation. ‘Spider-Man’ – I didn’t know so much. But it is a really successful franchise, and I’m happy to be involved with...

The aesthetic is not that we’re taking a hand-held camera and we’re just letting it roll and doing our thing, … Before It Had a Name.

I think, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve been able to be more reckless with my choices, because practically speaking, you get less careful. Your choices become more instinctive, and you feel like if you make...

When I was a kid I was very interested in the idea of the will, finding out what you’re capable of. I liked those kind of challenges.

With theatre, you have to be ready for anything.

Plenty of bad movies are very successful, and plenty of good movies are not. And distribution is so crazy, some films won’t even get their day in court.

I’m one of those people who when I go over a bridge, I want to jump. It’s just this intense tickle in the back of my throat. It’s like I’m on the verge the whole...

In films you do a scene, you play around with it and unless you’re doing a lot of reshooting, which no one has the luxury to do, you deal with the problem for a day...

Unless it’s a down-and-dirty little film … you have to strike that balance between having it rooted and having the people not fall out of it,

I wish to Christ I could make up a really great lie. Sometimes, after an interview, I say to myself, ‘Man, you were so honest – can’t you have some fun? Can’t you do some...