"I'm the sort of bloke that will have stand-up arguments with producers, saying, "Look, mate, I know you're product-placing that fucking thing' If I can see it, I'm just not going to allow it to happen... You lose all of your integrity as soon as you cross over into that sort of crass commercialism."

"If it's not going to be that serious, I don't want to do it. It's a personal taste. I don't like watching an actor have the same fucking hairdo from time period to time period, from character to character— I just think it's bullshit. It's a waste of money and a waste of my time as an audience member."

"It's really hard to explain, because it's a fucking prick of a job, you know? Particularly when you get successful with it.... People don't understand why your life suddenly changed when, hey, to them it's fucking ten bucks at the movies, it's over in a couple of hours. They dont understand the prep, they don't understand the real physical shit that you put yourself through. I mean, the last movie's an example— shoulder surgery partway through preparation. And it's a $100 million train, man, and I'm the fucking guy that drives the train. And I've got to get back on that train and make sure that this thing is completed."

"It was a 100 percent fucking home run, except the central character of William Shakespeare was not a fucking writer— he was not smelly enough, he was not unshaven enough, and obviously hadn't had enough to drink. He was some prissy pretty boy. What the fuck? That's so disrespectful."

"I'm fundamentally quite shy, so that thing of taking on another character is quite a liberating thing to do if you're a shy person, because within that character framework you can now go to all these other places. [pauses] And I never found another job that I was actually that good at."

"There's nothing like sitting back and talking to your cows."

"I'd move to Los Angeles if New Zealand and Australia were swallowed up by a tidal wave, if there was a bubonic plague in England and if the continent of Africa disappeared from some Martian attack."

"Melancholic and lovable is the trick, right? You've got to be able to show that you have these feelings. In the game of life, you get these feelings and how you deal with those feelings. What you do when you are trying to deal with a melancholy. A melancholy can be sweet. It's not a mean thing, but it's something that happens in life — like autumn."

"I always like to say to people who want to be rich and famous, try being rich first. See if that doesn't cover most of it."

"When Piedmont died, I had to pay him back for my life. I found out there's another debt to pay — for the privilege of being alive. I thought Sophie was my reward for trying to live a good life. Uh uh. There is no payoff — not now."

"I think The Razor's Edge is a pretty good movie. But at the time, it was just as reviled as any other comedian doing a serious thing now. Like The Majestic [with Jim Carrey], movies where comedians go straight, people don't like them. It angers people, like you're taking something away from them. That's the response I got. I thought, "Well, aren't we all bigger than that?" I wasn't shocked by it, but I thought that the professional critics would be able to say, "OK, we shouldn't rule this out, because the guy normally does other stuff." Unless it's really despicable, then you have to just jump with both feet on the neck."

"I think romance basically starts with respect. And new romance always starts with respect. I think I have some romantic friendships. Like the song “Love the One You’re With”; there is something to that. It’s not just make love to whomever you’re with, it’s just love whomever you’re with. And love can be seeing that here we are and there’s this world here. If I go to my room and I watch TV, I didn’t really live. If I stay in my hotel room and watch TV, I didn’t live today."

"This isn't the old Mister Sunshine."

"I suppose we should never be horrified by what we see in the mirror. Or maybe we should never wish to be content with what we see in the mirror."

"I don't know what my fans are going to think. It's definitely not what they're used to from me."

"I think that the online world has actually brought books back. People are reading because they're reading the damn screen. That's more reading than people used to do."

"You need friends, especially in the theatre, you need friends. You need people to interchange with, interface with, connect with. Together you’re going to make it, you’re going to do it together, you’re going to put it on, whatever it is."

"The greatest theatre that I experienced in my life was The Living Theatre and they were Off-Off-Broadway. And that was in the fifties."

"[Insomnia]’s a film that I look back on with great fondness. Working with Al Pacino, Robin Williams and Hilary Swank was an incredible experience. Sometimes, when people look for connections in your work, they look more at things like budget level than at the filmmaking itself. If you compare it to Oppenheimer, for example, there’s a similar attempt to try and convey the subjective experience of the protagonist. In the case of Pacino’s character, he’s suffering from a distortion of perception due to lack of sleep, and it’s not a million miles away from what I’m trying to do with showing Oppenheimer’s internal process, particularly at the beginning of the film."

"Off-Off-Broadway is absolutely necessary. It doesn't have to be sanctioned by the state, subsidized or anything. The plank and the passion is what it's about."