Actors From Los Angeles

"Don't think for a moment that I'm really like any of the characters I play. That's why it's called acting."

"The last thing I want to turn into is a fat Hollywood jerk. I was brought up without much money and I was happy. I don't think that I will strive for money or success and end up greedy or big-headed. That only leads to unhappiness. I can still be down-to-earth and do this job as long as I enjoy it."

"The main thing for me right now is just to live my life with my family and friends. They treat me like Leo, not 'Leonardo, Master Thespian'. That's all I need to keep my sanity."

"If you can do what you do best and be happy, you're further along in life than most people."

"My God, no! I hate this whole hunk thing! I feel when I see myself in that, and these other cute faces, that I'm just part of this meat factory, like, 'Wow! Here's the hunk of the month! This month we're shoving Leonardo DiCaprio down your throat! Isn't he cute. Let's put him on the cover and we'll sell so many more magazines...' That's definitely not what I want to be, and I've tried real hard to get away from that whole situation."

"I’ve always kind of made sure to maintain the sense of who I am and never be mean or cruel or snotty to anyone. Because, at the end of the day, it's not going to help you last in the business, and who wants to be around someone like that? I don't want to turn into ‘that guy.’ That guy!"

"I hate speaking in front of a large audience. I don't know where it came from...but its just this gut-wrenching fear of slipping up and doing something horrible."

""You learn after a while that it's not getting your face recognised that's the payoff. It's having your film remembered."

"I don't have emotions about a lot of things. I rarely get angry, I rarely cry. I guess I do get excited a lot, but I don't get sad and enormously happy."

"I'm not the sort of person who tries to be cool or trendy. I'm definitely an individual."

"I'm absolutely clean. I've never tried anything. That's not a lie!."

"With Romeo and Juliet, you're talking about two people who meet one night, and get married the same night. I believe in love at first sight-but it hasn't happened to me yet."

"Drugs? Every one has a choice and I choose not to do drugs."

"I like my name. My parents were in the Uffizi Gallery looking at a Leonardo Da Vinci when my mom felt me kick. That's how I got my name. My parents were real hippies."

"There's no other art form in the world that affects me more."

"I can name 30 or 40 sequences that were some of the most difficult things I've ever had to do. Whether it's going in and out of frozen rivers, or sleeping in animal carcasses, or what I ate on set. (I was) enduring freezing cold and possible hypothermia constantly."

"Being dubbed as a hunk sort of annoys me. It gives me a yucky feeling."

"The best thing about acting is that I get to lose myself in another character and actually get paid for it. It`s a great outlet. As for myself, I`m not sure who I am. It seems that I change every day."

"I'm probably not going to get married unless I live with somebody for 10 or 20 years. But these people (Romeo and Juliet) took a chance and they did it. We don't have the balls that Romeo did."

"Everywhere I go, somebody is staring at me. I don`t know if people are staring because they recognize me or because they think I`m a weirdo."

"On whether there are any aspects of fame he dislikes: You kidding? I feel very fortunate. A lot of people would love to be in my position. There are so many people out there who are suffering trillions of times more than I could ever suffer, and would love to be me. I am a lucky little bastard."

"I’ve been in the business since I was 16, so I’ve had a 14-year career. I’ve always had acting in my blood. Doing this, whatever it is, was something I was drawn to since my earliest memories. Ironically, I lived in Hollywood, but never understood that all it took was getting an agent and being persistent."

"Well it's a risk to do a movie of this calibre on a subject matter and a point in history people are not very familiar with. It's a tough subject to sell - so salary-wise you have to make sacrifices to make a certain film happen. I would have been an idiot to pass up the opportunity to work with Mr Scorsese."

"If you hear of any incident about me - a fight, a change of clothes, a little extra gel in the hair, don't believe it till you talk to me."

"On rumors: I've heard some pretty bad rumors...that I'm gay. If I want to go to a party with a few male friends, it doesn't mean that I'm gay. I don't see why I can't have friends of both sexes without rumors being spread about me. It's crazy."

"As an actor, you're constantly searching for that great character. Also, being a history buff and learning about people in our past and amazing things that they've done, I came across a book about Howard Hughes and he was set up as basically, the most multi-dimensional character I could ever come across. Often, people have tried to define him in biographies, but no one seems to be able to categorize him."

"I lived in Hollywood and, ironically, I didn't know you could just go out and get an agent and go on auditions and try and become an actor, I thought it was like a Masonic thing, like a blood line you had to belong to - until I was 13. Then I realised what you had to do. It is the one thing I know I want to do for the rest of my life."

"I like to help the whales, the otters, and the dolphins. When I`m acting and I take a break, the first thing on my list is spending time by the sea."

"On Martin Scorsese: Martin has brought so much to the art form of film, and he is not the type of person who would be upset by not receiving an Oscar, although it is a practical joke that he has not won an Academy Award after all these years. Whatever opinions critics will have of The Aviator, I really think that this is a great piece of art: once again, he has made a great classic film."

"On turning 30: "I kind of feel like the same person except more time has gone by. I hate to say that I feel like an adult now. I have to admit I wish I was still 18. After all, even through the time while I was representing that wild kid, I really wasn't. I was just living my life. I was just not making movies at the time."

""I wasn't surprised that Jamie got the award. But I knew that cameras would be stuffed up my face so I had my response ready. Anyone who says they don't practice is a liar." -on losing out on the Oscar to Jamie Foxx during the 2005 Academy Awards."

"When you run into Hammett and his political history, you see that he’s explaining what’s wrong with society, the crime of society itself. And how can you be a hero inside that?"

"The DC world was: There’s good and bad, and it’s an absolute thing. But Marvel had characters like the Sub-Mariner, who was a hero to his people and a villain to the surface world. I can have good and bad thoughts, basically. And I loved it. I’ve always loved it."

"There was a period of time where all the books in the world could fit on this shelf,' Walter Mosley said. He was pointing at one modest-size row of books in his Brooklyn home ..."And what people did is they read them over and over again, and they knew them so well, and they learned so much, and it changed them. Now, this shelf represents one second of publishing."

"The police and I have a deal. I don't talk to them and they don't listen to me."

"Lawyer even sounds like liar."

"What still needs to be accomplished can be summed up by the lovely album released on my birthday last year by Solange—A Seat at the Table. How much significant, systemic progress and change can be made if you still don’t have a seat at the table? Walter Mosley was organizing around this question in the early 90s via PEN’s Open Book Committee, which I believe he founded, to help bring more people of color into the publishing industry. Why is that vital? Because different people at the table ask different questions, seek different voices, and have a different relationship to all the things we are told are “universal.” Intersectionality matters. Consider what work we wouldn’t get to read if other talented people didn’t get a seat at the table, a chance to guest edit, an opportunity to curate, to be a juror, to host, promote, celebrate, read and review, be reviewed, speak …"

"If I only wrote Easy Rawlins, I might be a lot more successful, money-wise and stuff, but the work would be dead."

"There was a desire — it wasn’t a marketing desire, it was ‘I want everybody to read this and to understand it no matter what level they’re at in their own education.’ Robert E. Howard was very well educated, knew a lot of stuff, but you didn’t have to know that to read Conan."

"You know what I just realized? Jack Black...Jack White! [points to Jack White]"

"It's great to be here at the VMA's! I know this show's been a little sketchy in the past. But there isn't gonna be any problems tonight...is there Eminem?! Not here, someone should've told me."

"Hey guys, there isn't gonna be a Plan B. You called me in to bring the thunder and that's what I'm gonna do."

"I… am Steve."

"[cries] I just want my friend back!"

"Y-y-you know what? Fine! Go ahead, join the Black Eyed Peas! I-I-I don't need you...I don't need anybody! [runs away crying]"

"I hoped to sell 50,000 records. My main goals were to sing my heart out, to challenge myself vocally, to find beautiful music that has great stories and to express what I love about the musicality of different languages. And if 10 people bought it, I'd be thrilled that 10 people listened to it. And if it was 10 million, I'd be thrilled that 10 million people listened to it. This is just beyond any dream that I could have possibly had.""

"Per Te (lyrics by Josh Groban)"

"You're Still You (lyrics by Linda Thompson)"

"No matter what your age and no matter where you come from, everyone can change the world in some way, whether it's being a mentor to someone younger than you or someone that doesn't have as much experience as you. If you're passionate enough, you can do whatever you want and definitely change the world."

"I was the hopeless romantic. I had so many crushes. But not on the real obvious girls. I was into the quirky ones. I was so shy, though."