Ben Mendelsohn
I think it's that thing of growing up all the time watching American movies and listening to American music. It hits you in a way that's a lot purer because you are not in that culture that you're watching.
'The Outlaw Josey Wales' is one I watched again and again and again in the early days of VHS.
Fassbender is fearless; he's a fearless actor.
I grew up loving the John Wayne and Clint Eastwood westerns.
I think some of my favorite Australian films were shot by people that are not Australian. And I think when Dean Semler did 'Dances with Wolves,' for instance, that's a very different-looking Western than what you've seen much of before. It's very rich, color-wise. But we've got our own very proud thing going on.
My favorite-ever version of 'King Lear' is the 1971 film by Peter Brooks. He has this enormous fur thing, and it adds enormous gravitas.
In Australia, even the darkest subject matter has a little pinch of humor. A little sweet to make the sour go down.
I think Kyle Chandler is something of a national treasure.
I've been a Ryan Reynolds fan since the first time I saw him.
The way that actors talk about acting is generally quite punishing, and I think actors want to put forward the idea that they do all of this work because, you know, it's a post-De Niro world, when, largely, in fact, it's almost never true.
Let me give you a little Mendelsohn 101: I came up in television in the early- to mid- 1980s in Australia.
I think there's a lot of mythos about what's required in acting.
I have an intensive relationship with the thing that I'm working on, and I hope that comes through. It's better for me to not worry about the things I can't fix once they're done.
It's good to surf whatever waves are going on right there as they're happening.
'Slow West' is a western, and it's sort of a twist on the genre stylistically, I think, from what I understand going in.
One of my earlier films is 'Quigley Down Under.' That was early on in my career, and that was horsey.
You think of 'Outlaw Josey Wales,' you immediately think of the old Indian guy, Sondra Locke, the old lady with the glasses, beautiful old actress.
For me it's a compliment, playing baddie characters. I take it as a compliment.
I think difficult characters are very rewarding to do. They often have facets to them and this and that.
You can certainly extend your adolescence. There's people that are very good at extending it indefinitely.
I was with my grandmother, while one of my brothers lived with my dad, and one lived with my mom. It wasn't a great situation. Acting was the one good thing I was involved in.
I did 'Quigley Down Under,' which is quite deliberately placed in Australia, which is a Tom Selleck, Alan Rickman, Laura San Giacomo film from '88, I want to say.
The people that impress me are Bob Dylan. The ones who keep working, year in and year out, and keep coming up with stuff.
Acting is a bit of a heart and soul exercise with me. It's kind of all I've got.
I mean, there's a sense wherein you skip a part of childhood, too, when you start working at that age I did; I was out working and out of home at 15, paying my own way in the world.
I think now there's much more of a confessional culture. That's not my bag. I come from a slightly older school of thought: 'give 'em nothin.' You don't plead guilty.
There's very little different between the way the government operates in America and the way criminals do.
As an outsider in America, you do see the kind of hypocrisy that's rampant there.
I think there's a lot of mythos about what's required in acting. The way that actors talk about acting is generally quite punishing, and I think actors want to put forward the idea that they do all of this work because, you know, it's a post-De Niro world, when, largely, in fact, it's almost never true.
At 15 I had moved out of my parents' place, and my options were looking pretty narrow. But I had this acting thing and I just wanted to be able to keep going because it was really good. That was all I wanted.
The people I've encountered who are really dangerous in my life don't go around with their fangs drawn - they are dangerous because of the way they interpret what's going on.
One of the things that I found very confronting in my early working life was that people thought I was some sensitive doe-eyed lovelorn boy, because they'd seen me do that a couple of times. What tends to happen is you get a run of similar roles.
I've spent various periods of my career being thought of as various things, various degrees of substance and ideas.
I basically sat around unemployed in Sydney for three years straight, and the two things that saved me were the rugby league and my dog.
I remember 'The Yearling' was the first film I ever saw, and my mom told me I cried for about four or five days afterwards. I'd be going along during the day and suddenly start crying over what had happened to the little deer.
I never felt like someone who was boyish and coming to terms with asking girls out or anything like that, which was what 'The Big Steal' and 'Spotswood' were about. But I guess that's the impression I left on people.
In a very real sense, all you do when you're shooting film or television is you shoot a scene, and then you shoot another scene, and then you shoot another scene.
Once upon a time, they thought I was a sweet, wide-eyed boy that was just trying to figure out how to kiss the girl. Lots of comic relief and adolescent yearnings.
Before 'Animal Kingdom,' I wasn't particularly thought of in villainous roles.
It's got a lot more room for nuance and an assumption that people have started from the beginning. 'Bloodline' ends up being like a really good novel.
The thing about home is that it's a tough place to sustain a career, just by dent of the size of the place. I had about as good a run there as anybody, but it's still a tough ask. I mean, the person I think with the best career in Australia is Ray Meagher, in 'Home and Away.'
It's a tougher gig than what people think it is. The proper, real, genuine, worldwide movie stars don't get a lot of downtime from the world outside. That's a tougher price, I think, than what people's fantasy of fame account for.
It would be excellent to do a 'Star Wars.'
I think I've benefited from not being hugely known. It means I have to do something really effective to be noticed.
I don't believe in the transformation myth, where if you have more success, life changes for you.
The thing about acting is you have to wait to be asked to the dance.
I'm very cagey by nature.
The very rough story is this: Melbourne boy, out of both my parents' houses at a young age, lived with my grandmother, drama teacher twisted me into doing this TV thing that I thought my mates were doing, too.
Fifteen years old, out in the world, acting was all I had.
I don't know that it exists, the perfect family. It's always complicated.