I take pleasure in the little things. Double cheeseburgers, those are good, the sky ten minutes before it rains,the moment your laugh turns into a cackle. And I sit here, and smoke my Camel straights, and I ride my own melt.Collection: Rain
I've very rarely worked with somebody that had such a clear idea of what Alejandro Amenábar wanted to do and what he wanted to achieve. The guy is incredibly prepared. He was clearly making a movie for himself and his own dream. I just tried to be a part of that dream. It's a rare opportunity.Collection: Dream
I feel like everyone I meet is an imaginary friend. I don't know. The older I get the more I wonder what's real.Collection: Real
I've turned down good directors before because I knew the part didn't speak to me and I've worked with less talented directors before because the part I had such passion for.Collection: Passion
You need to be a good screen partner. It's very meaningful to me to be a part of great acting performances.Collection: Meaningful
But the truth is, I've never wanted to be a movie star - and I've been pretty clear about that.Collection: Stars
Emma Watson is my kids' favorite actor on the planet. They never took me more seriously than when I was working with her.Collection: Kids
The experience on that movie (Dead Poets Society) was, for lack of a better term, life-altering. Peter Weir has a unique talent for making movies that are intelligent but also mainstream. I've never been terribly successful at doing that.Collection: Successful
A lot of American actors when they do Shakespeare put on a phoney English accent and it drives me crazy. You're always fighting against the idea that only the British know how to do Shakespeare.Collection: Crazy
Whenever actors tout off about doing their own stunts, it's always ... they're so protective of you that I always know these stunt guys are so good [and] they're never going to put you in danger. But it's fun to do something kind of exciting, even something as simple as driving 70 through a tunnel with five motorcycles ... it sounds simple, but it's actually really nerve-wracking.Collection: Fun
And the joy of my job - and it's really true - is that it's constantly evolving and changing.Collection: Jobs
I've had different opportunities in my life, but I've tried to maintain the spirit of an amateur. Our culture roots everything in the barometer of success and how much money you make. But if you really just aspire to a life in the arts, it's really not a barometer at all.Collection: Art
It was fantastic to be on the set again with Denzel (Washington) and Antoine (Fuqua) and then to have the situation be so different. We weren't making a sequel to Training Day. We were in the middle of the desert riding around on some horses.Collection: Horse
It's a really unique job that is a little schizophrenic and you have to kind of do it with a sense of humor.The trick is figuring out what each job is asking of you and what it's not asking of you.Collection: Jobs
Good genre movies are a little bit like trying to write a haiku. There are certain things that you have to do to fulfill the audience's expectations, but inside that, you have complete freedom to talk about whatever you want. Who wants to see a movie about gun violence in America and class? But, if you set it in this terrifying, fun, roller coaster ride of a movie, you can talk about whatever you want. That's been the game that genre movies play, when they do it well.Collection: Fun
Nightmares are a strange thing. Your worst fear is sometimes something you enjoy thinking about, for some strange reason. I don't know why that is, but it's some kind of fantasy that people play out. "What would I do to protect my children? I'd do anything." And then, you watch it play out. I'm petrified of such a thing.Collection: Children
It is quite rare to find people who are really dedicated to a level of excellence. Most of us are really quite lazy most of the time.Collection: People
I like [that] there's a certain inherent drama to those jobs that is exciting to tell stories about and it's still real life. I'm a little less interested in the current fad of being obsessed with superheroes and things that are so out of the box.Collection: Jobs
If you don't give inspiration an opportunity, it will never arrive.Collection: Inspiration
Whenever a really passionate, talented filmmaker seems to have an interest in me, I take it very seriously because I like to work.Collection: Passionate
I meet a lot of young people that want to go into acting because they think of what it will do for them. If that's the case, it can be a very, very painful profession. But if the kids want to do acting because they love it, and they want to give to it, then they can have a great life. It's really about as simple as how you look at it.Collection: Kids
For me, the real goal is to integrate. The thing that I'm most happy with is the fact that I've been able to keep doing all of it - to keep writing, and to keep acting in movies, and to keep acting on the stage, to keep directing plays. I find that they feed each other, and that I learn about acting from directing and I learn about writing from acting.Collection: Real
Directing is like putting together a collage.Collection: Together
My favorite stories are human, so I'm always looking for...Collection: Stories
You can't keep wanting to be 20 years old. Everybody knows that, but what's in the next room?Collection: Years
And the best films feel like a fist punching you in the solar plexus and all elements of the filmmaking process - the acting, the design, the cinematography, the music, is all working to one end.Collection: Design
When I woke up I was naked. I have this one oddball idiosyncrasy: Sometimes in my sleep I take off all my clothes.Collection: Sleep
With this sunrise somehow I felt I was exactly where I was supposed to be... Have faith, the light seemed to announce.Collection: Light
I did this movie right after it about the life of Chet Baker. It's called Born to Be Blue. In that situation, there's a real clear character you're drawing on. It's a real person. It's really exciting and interesting to do the research to figure out how to make that a nuanced, three-dimensional human being.Collection: Real
Set designers, costume designers, actors, writers, music, that's what is beautiful.Collection: Beautiful
I have a daughter and the thing I wish for her is not love, fame, money or anything like that. It's just one great best friend. You know, if you have somebody that has your back, you're gonna be all right.Collection: Daughter
A good movie humanizes people.Collection: People
It just makes sense to remember gratitude and the place that gratitude should have in your life, and that none of us are owed these wonderful experiences, and we should always make the best of them.Collection: Gratitude
We all have this fantasy of finding our one true love who's going to be the perfect fit. It's just not a reality.Collection: Reality
Well, there's a great Marlon Brando quote that to do something well you have to spiritually marry your director. You have to be making the same movie they are in that you have to try to help their imagination be better, and more full, and more fully realized, but you can't have a different imagination because then you end up - and you see this a lot in movies - where it feels like they were making five different films.Collection: Imagination
I never thought that I would be labeled something like Generation X because of that movie ( Reality Bites ). I had no idea going into it, and it wasn't a label I could relate to.Collection: Reality
Alejandro Amenábar has a unique way of approaching movies and thinking about something which was new to me. It was different. I have a lot of respect for him so I just took a gamble.Collection: Unique
The idea that a film is created in the editing room - it's only a certain kind of movie that's made in the editing room and it's not one that I really want to see.Collection: Editing
There's this kind of incredibly mistaken idea that because it's so much cheaper to roll the camera than it used to be and it's so much easier to accumulate a ton of footage, that then you can just go shoot a ton of footage and the editor will make sense out of it. But if you don't have something deliberate made, you're not gonna save it in the editing room.Collection: Editing
The script [of Regression] wasn't the draw for me. It was largely Alejandro [Amenabar] and his way of talking. To hear him talking about the script was way more interesting than the script. He wrote it, and so, English is his second language. It's an interesting thing. I've had that before. I was directed by Alfonso Cuarón before, too. It's always interesting when you're being directed by somebody like that. So much of directing is about communication, and finding the right words, and what it means, and how to convey certain emotions and ideas.Collection: Communication
One of the things that's really lousy about making movies is that you have such little interaction with your audience.Collection: Littles
Alejandro Amenábar is a very interesting filmmaker. I had really liked The Others, which was a movie he made with Nicole Kidman a few years ago. He made a very compelling case about how much he wanted me to be in this movie. Whenever a really passionate, talented filmmaker seems to have an interest in me, I take it very seriously because I like to work.Collection: Years
The kindest compliments I have ever heard are when cops tell me Training Day and Assault on Precinct 13 inspired them to become cops. The funniest compliments I have ever heard are when people tell me that 'I love your band Sugar Ray.Collection: Funny
Time is so much a part of what makes you close to people.Collection: People
It's so hard for every young person, trying to figure out the adult you want to be.Collection: Trying
I believe in the healing restorative power of art and communication. And so that's probably my rule. But that doesn't apply to bedtimes. And stuff like that.Collection: Art
Sometimes people save the best part of themselves for their art.Collection: Art
Your development as a person should coincide with your development in all aspects of your life.Collection: Development
Sometimes people, their creative drive comes from an energy to try to heal themselves.Collection: People