actors-from-ireland

"A glass is good, and a lass is good, And a pipe to smoke in cold weather; The world is good, and the people are good, And we're all good fellows together."

"Dear sir, this brown jug, that now foams with mild ale, Out of which I now drink to sweet Kate of the vale, Was once Toby Filpot, a thirsty old soul, As e'er crack'd a bottle, or fathom'd a bowl;"

"Amo, amas, I love a lass, As a cedar tall and slender; Sweet cowslip's grace Is her nom'native case, And she's of the feminine gender."

"I am a friar of orders grey, And down in the valleys I take my way; I pull not blackberry, haw, or hip,— Good store of venison fills my scrip."

"I don’t enjoy the personality side of being an actor. I don’t understand why it’s expected I’ll be scintillating on a talkshow."

"I’m always trying to cut lines in scenes. I like films that pose the big questions, then leave it to the audience"

"You have to move faster and work faster but I also enjoy that. When you’re confident in the material and hopefully confident in the character then you can just go at a pace."

"We made a film about the man who created the atomic bomb, and for better or for worse, we’re all living in Oppenheimer’s world. So I would really like to dedicate this to the peacemakers everywhere."

"I was a Chris Nolan fan. That’s how I was when I met him for the first time … So, it feels absurd that I’ve been in six of his films."

"I love it when it becomes an immersive experience. I love getting lost in it. In the early days, that was with theater. It felt kind of extraordinary that with just the power of will and a couple of lights and a good script, we were creating this world. And so, it's that's kind of addictive, when it works well."

"The majority of my buddies are not in the business. I also love not working. And I think for me a lot of research as an actor is just fucking living, and, you know, having a normal life doing regular things and just being able to observe, and be, in that sort of lovely flow of humanity. If you can’t do that because you’re going from film festival to movie set to promotions…I mean that’s The Bubble. I’m not saying that makes you any better or less as an actor, but it’s just a world that I couldn’t exist in. I find it would be very limiting on what you can experience as a human being, you know?"

"Method is like a euphemism. We all have a method to get to the final result. And whatever that method is, it's personal and unique to each actor. It's become sort of confused, I think, with the Stanislavski approach. But every actor has their own individual method."

"I think instinct is your most powerful tool that you have as an actor. Nothing must be predetermined. So therefore, you mustn't have a plan about how you're gonna play stuff. And I love that. It's like being buffeted by the wind and being buffeted by emotion."

"I’m stubborn and lacking in confidence, which is a terrible combination. I don’t want to put anything out that I don’t think is excellent."

"But to clarify the thing about interviews, I love talking about the movie, I love talking about music and books and art. I'm not a huge fan of talking about myself. And I don't, and I don't think anyone really is, but I fully believe in this movie, and I love promoting it. So I'm very comfortable with all of that. And in terms of, you know, how it changes your life or anything like that, or changes how people perceive you that that hasn't changed for me, you know, my life has been exactly the same as it always was."

"I know everyone says this, but you never go into making a film thinking about awards. That's not what we do. It's impossible to make a film that way."

"I come from theater, and I love acting with my body. You get to do that an awful lot in theater, but you don’t get to do it as much in film because film is about the close-up generally. And theater is always by necessity in a wide shot."

"There’s a wealth of stuff out there and I will read it all. I am never, ever going to understand quantum mechanics, no matter how hard or how many times people try to explain it to me. There’s 0.0001 per cent of the population on the planet who have the brainpower to understand that."

"I don’t really partake. I don’t go out. I’m just at home mostly, or with my friends, unless I have a film to promote. I don’t like being photographed by people. I find that offensive."

"You find so much empathy in novels, you know, because there you are putting yourself into somebody else's point of view, and I've always been a big reader. When a movie can connect with someone, and they feel seen or feel heard, or a novel can change somebody's life, or a piece of music-- an album-- can change someone's life. And I've had all that happen to me. And that's the power of good art, I think."

"Well, first of all, it's imperative not to judge the character. Because then you've lost as a performer. You have to try and understand [them]. You have to be like a kind of emotional detective. But your job primarily is to define the truth in the character to try and portray them in a truthful way."

"But, when a film connects with audiences like this particular one has in a way that none of us could have anticipated... it's hugely flattering and hugely humbling and it's lovely to see that."

"I feel like I’m entering a different phase of my life. I don’t mind embracing it. I had a really good time in my 20s and 30s. Now I’m ready for a bit more… decorum, I guess? A bit more moderation? Still enjoying being a young man, but looking over the wall into the other side, you know?"

"Inevitably, if you play a character for a long time, and I was researching him for six months, then shooting it for however long that was.. And you're playing them 18 hours a day every day. By osmosis, you're exchanging atoms, You become consumed or immersed [by it], that's just the way it is."

"Sometimes it’s like I’m two different actors with two different careers, the Star Trek career and the other career."

"It’s funny because I live in Ireland and grew up in Ireland, but we just grew up watching American TV and American movies and listening to American music and stuff. I’ve always loved since I was a kid trying to do different accents, so it was just something that was kind of there. And then you work on specifically trying to make it sound from a certain region or whatever. I’ve been lucky that I guess I had a bit of an ear for doing an accent, which was good."

"The priest’s breath was sour and hot as he moved towards me…Then there was blackness...I remembered every single moment up to a point…Then it’s concreted over. What’s buried there? Is it something worth exhuming?..Yes. Maybe if I say it, it will lose its power over me."

"It still makes me angry. The church still controls education in Ireland. And it’s an obscenity to tell innocent children they’re going to go to hell for taking sixpence out of their mother’s purse…[in America] It’s regarded as important not to put money into it, because if you put money into it, you start people thinking, and then they start to question the system and that’s dangerous…I want to go on that journey with my child trying to expand their vision of the world. I’m not going to leave it to them to take over her brain."

"When I found out that the Pentagon has a film department, a lot of things made sense to me. America reveals itself to the world through film. We absorb the American dream because they own the means of production... Reagan and Bush essentially appealed to American cinema mythology; the good guys out on their farms in cowboy hats. America is Gary Cooper. The terrorists are the Indians on horseback. Trump appeals as much to our cinematic language as to our politics: he works through the old reliables of fear and lies."

"There’s a kind of an unspoken acceptance of the idea that sex against girls is kind of the real assault. The violation of women is what you should pay attention to. There’s a shame about men speaking out. A sense that if you were abused, it was your own fault. Men are not supposed to talk about their feelings. Men have to be strong and men don’t cry."

"We now prefer the fantasy…We find comfort in the lies. I was the victim of that for so long. I imbibed everything. It led to a place where I became extremely unhappy. And now I question everything. I believe it’s a responsibility to do it."

"Nothing much will change under Biden because his thing is: let’s return America to what it was. Well, what America was caused Trump. The Democrats rolled out the red carpet."

"I think Catholicism is actually so counter-cultural to capitalism that it’s great to get relief from that economic narrative. It’s great to go to a place where it’s all about the losers. Capitalism is all about winning and ‘be the best that you can be’. That’s a tiresome mantra. ‘I am legend’ is appropriate if you’re a superhero, but not if you’re a human."

"Prayer helped me with the loss of my wife to cancer and with a child who had fallen on tough times. Now prayer helps me to be a father, to be an actor and to be a man, it always helps to have a bit of prayer in your back pocket. At the end of the day, you have to have something and for me that is God, Jesus, my Catholic upbringing, my faith. In a way (my life) all leads back to a little boy in Navan, my home town on the banks of the Boyne. Sometimes, it has been painted in melodramatic tones but it was a fantastic way to be brought up. The Catholicism and the Christian brothers, those are deep-rooted images and the foundation for a person of some acting skill, God has been good to me. My faith has been good to me in the moments of deepest suffering, doubt and fear. It is a constant, the language of prayer... I might not have got my sums right from the Christian Brothers or might not have got the greatest learning of literature from them but I certainly got a strapping amount of faith. But there is one thing that the people of Ireland know how to do and that is to survive. You have to keep your faith and stay optimistic."

"During my early years as an actor, Bond was never a desire, but when Cassie was playing in For Your Eyes Only, then, of course, it became a joke. I would do my own impersonations of James Bond. Just for fun. Just driving her home from work, or going out, or talking about her experience on it. But even so, it was not an ambition to play James Bond. I had my sights set on other aspects of the work."

"Fuck that! Conor McGregor, you're taking everything I've worked for! Motherfucker, I'm going to fight your fucking ass!"

"This is the game. We win some, we lose some but I will never shy away from a challenge."

"I make no excuses. It is what is it. I came up short. I took a chance, it didn't pay off. I'll be back."

"He's a good fighter and everything, but he's where he's at because of the push he's getting."

"I think Floyd needs to learn before he opens his mouth. You don't put a man like me in a situation like that. You know, you put me in a name that's got to do with prejudice when you know nothing about me. I am a multi-cultured individual. I take from all cultures. Look at me. I am a product of many cultures as a young, Irish man. I know he wasn't saying that I am that person, but it put me in that bracket and I did not appreciate that one bit. There's people buried in the desert for less than that so Floyd needs to understand before he speaks who he is speaking about and that is as simple as that."

"Me and Jesus are cool. I'm cool with all the gods. Gods recognize gods."

"Timing beats speed...precision beats power."

"You can talk about your wins and losses but at the end of the day, you’ve tasted that darkness of being KO’d stiff, and you will taste it again on March 5th."

"This is a superfight. I look up at that poster and I see myself tucked in the back there. I see a guy who has..his last gate was $1.7 million, he fought on free tv. He's never brought a dime to the company, he's never made a dime, yet he is sitting there on the front of my poster. I think that's a department that needs to be looked at, somebody is sleeping on the job."

"Why would I want to train at that bum gym? I train with my own people, I have since day one. That man needs to get his facts straight before I roll in there and buy that gym."

"Steaks every day for me. Steaks for breakfast. Steaks for lunch. Steaks for brunch. Grass-fed, massaged beef. All day long."

"I can make you rich. I'll change your bum life. You fight me, it's a celebration. When you sign to fight me, it's a celebration. You ring back home, you ring your wife, "Baby, we've done it. We're rich baby. Conor McGregor made us rich. Break out the red panties.""

"I'm the money fight in the male shit at all divisions so fuck everybody else"

"It's a tough pill to swallow but we can either run from adversity or we can face our adversity head on and conquer it. And that's what I plan to do."

"I know where my allegiance lies and what I do for my country. I don't need a stupid little flower with a 100 different meanings to tell me if I do or do not represent my country. Check the facts of its original meaning. ALL soldiers. ALL wars. I have the blood of many nations on my gloves. Fought and beat on the world stage. You have a pint in your hand and a Celtic jersey on in your local. Fuck you and the Queen."