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...

You can be intuitive when you’ve got a more expansive role. You can get into the poetry of telling the story rather than just pushing buttons.

Great theatre is about challenging how we think and encouraging us to fantasize about a world we aspire to.

When you work on anything, you want to find the range of impulses – which ones get portrayed is another question, but you want to have that complexity and that fullness, even if you’re playing...

The English Patient’ is about the coming together of a French-Canadian nurse, an English patient, a Sikh in a turban and me, Caravaggio, and each of us is seeking a resolution to our own problems.

Basically, when I hear the words ‘family drama,’ I run in the opposite direction.

All the time, as an actor, you want to be asking what’s next and where things are going. If you’re not asking those questions, you’re not growing.

It’s really a story that makes as much fun of the body politic as any particular politicians. It makes fun of how we got to this place where there’s a lot of politics in entertainment...

I do know that I like to play characters that are sometimes a little on the outside – that’s because it feels kind of romantic and sexier to me. I really think they are the...

It’s true in the beginning I started playing villains, and I think that’s pretty clear, because if you don’t conventionally look a certain way and you’ve got a certain kind of presence when you’re young,...

A lot of critics are lazy. They don’t want to look closely and analyze something for what it is. They take a quick first impression and then rush to compare it to something they’ve seen...

Any actor who tells you that he makes choices, absolutely, is wrong. You find work and work finds you.

The Midwest isn’t somewhere you mix with those from the performing arts. But my mum and dad would go off to Chicago every so often to see shows. They would bring back the albums and...

I’m a task-oriented actor. A pretender. And I try to invent my process anew each time I make a new project. So I frown on any method.

I am confident only when I am constantly in motion. Between projects, the doubt creeps in.

I don’t have a preference between theatre and film; I like to do both. But I will say that there’s something about theatre that is more nourishing and sustaining than film ever can be.

I’m not attracted to naturalism, I’m not attracted to behavior, I’m attracted to dance. I’m attracted to gesture, I’m attracted to singing with your voice, as opposed to having a natural manner. I’m a theater...

I think on some level, you do your best things when you’re a little off-balance, a little scared. You’ve got to work from mystery, from wonder, from not knowing.

Celebrity is okay as long as you know it’s not about you.

When I give over to somebody’s vision rather than have an idea of what I need to do, it takes me to places I wouldn’t have got to by myself. I’m always attracted to a...

In my experience, sometimes a movie just hits at the wrong time, gets the wrong press, or gets the wrong representation, and it gets misunderstood.

I have no doubt that if I met Bob Dylan, it would be disappointing – and annoying to him. But that’s why I like Bob Dylan.

I set myself challenges every time I work. Ideally, I approach everything as though it’s the first time – with a beginner’s mind and an amateur’s love.

That’s a frustration sometimes, that certain directors that I’d like to work with, they just aren’t doing stories that I’m sort of castable in. Not always, but sometimes I have that frustration.

Corruption is something you face all the time. Avoid it.

I love theaters. I love the event of going there and seeing a movie with a lot of people. I like the community coming around the story.

One of the pleasures of going to the movies for me is quite simply to see new ways, to think about broader ways or to challenge something as a given. It’s usually people from outside,...

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.