I had a brother who was bullying me to write something because we wanted to make our own movies. So it was out of necessity in the beginning. Over time, I began to see that I could create the roles I wanted to play rather than just waiting around.
I'm the great-great-grandson of a sheep stealer.
I never really think too much about my voice.
I don't want to be too power-hungry.
The only way for you to show what you can do is to actually do.
When I was young, I had a very clear point of view on things in life, on moral questions. There was a black and white viewpoint on my world. As I've gotten older, I see the grey areas appear.
Cultures render their icons in their own image. Which comes down to vanity, in some sense.
It's easier to play aggression and malevolence onscreen, often, than to hit softer notes.
You can road-test relationships.
Whenever you deal with science fiction you are setting up a world of rules. I think you work hard to establish the rules. And you also have to work even harder to maintain those rules, and within that find excitement and unpredictability and all that stuff.
I think the great thing about characters is the ways that they can be surprising. I mean, sometimes you think you've got a lock on a personality, even just in life, and then they'll shock you by their behavior.
I think it's great to be able to go and watch a short film before you watch a feature.
I'm really great at making terrible analogies.
I do know one thing: it's best not to read the Internet.
Every job leaves its residue, a bit of extra knowledge, a new skill-set.
Polo is like playing golf with a saddle, and there are a lot of moving parts.
I don't call acting a real job, and writing is a hobby.
Blue Tongue Films is a very important part of my life.
People love boxing, but you've gotta wait two or three years for your favorite boxer to have a fight.
I don't have any kids of my own.
I really like kids.
My whole journey and career has been really interesting, but the one element it never really had was any sense of great momentum.
Actors want to act; actors want to emote. It's like the emotional equivalent of tearing your shirt off and screaming to the heavens: you want to express, and you want to be seen to be expressing.
I've never seen a film get away completely unscathed like I have 'Animal Kingdom.' There's not a single bad review that I've read of it yet; all through Sundance, all it got was high praise.
I often put any project I write in a different decade just to roll the thought around in my head. There's a thriller I've written that I think would be nice to set in the '70s or '80s, just to take cell phones away from the movie. There's nothing like the piercing ring of an old-school telephone to really scare an audience.
Everybody's a mix of good and bad choices that they make.
Sometimes, the smaller roles in movies can be the most interesting. If you only take the stance that you'll only play central characters in movies, you'll find yourself not being able to indulge in that morally grey terrain that makes support characters so rich and interesting.
I remember my brother Nash had just directed me in 'The Square,' and I was sitting in Australia going: 'No one's called me about working for ages. I don't know if I'm ever going to get another job.'
As an actor, I'm constantly striving to find the darkness in the lighter characters and the lightness in the darker characters.
I never imagined myself in a movie with magic.
Having rain on your tuxedo is a pretty good reminder that you're not James Bond.
I learned a great lesson early on, even before I was really an actor, from that movie 'Planes, Trains & Automobiles' that John Hughes made: that you could make a movie that's really, really, really, really funny, and sometimes you can still achieve... making the audience feel very deep emotions as well.
You can't really be picky when no one is offering you anything.
I've signed four autographs for Sam Worthington in L.A., and I haven't told any of the people that I'm not him.
I'm on the list that I thought I'd never be on. I'm not sitting here thinking, 'God, I might get this part' or 'is it too late for me to play Hamlet?' It's really about: who do I get to work with? There's so many people on that list.
I never sing out loud because I'm afraid people will go, 'Shut up!'
Sometimes, what's not said is just as important to the writing as what is said. As a writer, we have our voices heard. I think that, at oftentimes, the ability to allow the dialogue to recede properly into the world of the film is also a really valid sort of way to be a writer, I think.
I'm not going to allow myself to second-guess projects. I'm just going to do the ones that I fully love and believe in - that's a real privilege.
I'm single, footloose and fancy free, I have no responsibilities, no anchors. Work, friendship and self-improvement, that's me.
Everything is a learning process: any time you fall over, it's just teaching you to stand up the next time.
To me, Hollywood seems a little bipolar. Things happen; things don't happen. Someone's in a movie; someone's not in a movie. I've learned not to build my expectations.
I worked for a big department store, and strangely, on my first day, they put me in charge of Christmas wrapping. I didn't know how to wrap a present and make it not look like it fell off a truck.
If, at the end of the day, I can look back and see pictures of all the characters I've played, and there's a smorgasbord of weirdos and interesting, odd, different characters, I'd be so happy.
It's weird: I don't see myself as a tough guy.
Pulled pork jokes never get old.
I find it strange when people can't relate to kids, because you were a kid once, you know?
Particularly when you're making a movie of a book, people are always waiting with their knives - you know?
Australians and the British are very similar: If you try and stand out in any way, and you try to reach for success, someone is gonna be there to cut you down.
I'm a pacifist.
