Quotes

I'm gonna design my own fleet of trailers. No! I'm gonna record an album like Jennifer Lopez. It'll be an acoustic version of KC & The Sunshine Band. Then maybe I'll design a line of clothes like [Sean 'Diddy' Combs] but all in synthetic fur.

I'd like to design something like a city or a museum. I want to do something hands on rather than just play golf which is the sport of the religious right.

[Viasat magazine, May 2001] Fame is a bitch, man.

[on what keeps him humble] You know, I telephoned my grandparents the other day, and my grandfather said to me, "We saw your movie." "Which one?". I said, and he shouted, "Betty, what was the name of that movie I didn't like?". I thought that was just classic. I mean, if that doesn't keep your feet on the ground, what would?

I'm one of those people you hate because of genetics. It's the truth.

Success is a beast. And it actually puts the emphasis on the wrong thing. You get away with more instead of looking within.

[Time magazine, October 13, 1997] You shouldn't speak until you know what you're talking about. That's why I get uncomfortable with interviews. Reporters ask me what I feel China should do about Tibet. Who cares what I think China should do? I'm a f---ing actor! They hand me a script. I act. I'm here for entertainment. Basically, when you whittle everything away, I'm a grown man who puts on makeup.

When you see a person, do you just concentrate on their looks? It's just a first impression. Then there's someone who doesn't catch your eye immediately, but you talk to them and they become the most beautiful thing in the world. The greatest actors aren't what you would call beautiful sex symbols. I'll tell you who my favorite actress is, Dianne Wiest, and you wouldn't call her a sex symbol. Dianne Wiest is, to me, the most beautiful woman on the screen.

[when asked by Conan O'Brien how he got into character as stoner Floyd in True Romance (1993)] I'm a method actor.

[May 2005, on his impending divorce to Jennifer Aniston] The thing I don't understand is looking at this as a failure. It's talked about like it failed, I guess because it wasn't flawless. Me, I embrace the messiness of life. I find it so beautiful, actually.

[2003] It's amazing what an impending midlife crisis will do for you, really. It got me motivated, having turned 40 in December.

[on having children] It really changes your perspective on the world. You know, I've had my day. I made some films, and I've really had a very fortunate life, and it's time for me to share that a little bit. Having children takes the focus off yourself, which I'm really grateful for. I'm so tired of thinking about myself. I'm sick of myself. You feel you want to be there and not miss out on anything. It's a true joy and a very profound love. You can write a book, you can make a movie, you can paint a painting, but having kids is the most extraordinary thing I've ever taken on.

[on how his children will influence his future roles] My thoughts these days are, "Oh, my God, what did I do? What are they going to see from the past?". It definitely colors what I'll approach in the future. I'll try to be a little bit more mature about my decisions.

[on how his earlier, lesser film roles ultimately improved him as an actor]: I believe I'm quite capable and we, as people, can learn to do anything, and that's proof of it! And my education is on film, on record! Now I can take on anything that comes my way and find truth in it an do a pretty good job.

[on Quentin Tarantino] The set is heaven and he is God. Heretics are not allowed.

[2010 - on New Orleans] Truthfully, my favorite sound in the entire world is opening up the balcony doors in the French Quarter and hearing four different sounds playing at once from the apartments across the way or down the street. It's a balmy night, twilight, and I'm drinking a beer, and this feeling just falls over me, of contentment. It gives me goosebumps to talk about it.

Fame makes you feel permanently like a girl walking past construction workers.

[on being dumped by ex-fiancée Jill Schoelen in 1989] She called me up in Los Angeles and was crying on the phone. She was lonely and there was a huge drama. At this point, I had $800 to my name and I spent $600 of it getting a ticket from Los Angeles to Hungary to see her. I got there, went straight to the set where she was filming and that night we went out to dinner. She told me that she had fallen in love with the director of the film. I was so shocked I said, "I'm outta here." I spent my night in Budapest, sitting on a bench, smoking, with just a local bum to talk to who couldn't speak English. These are the days and nights you remember when you have success. I returned to America absolutely broke. This is why recognition does not bother me too much.

[2009] What's valuable to me has become clearer as I've got older. To me, it's about the value of your time and your day and the value of the people you spend it with. It's about me being a strong father and guide and a good match for my significant other. Then, if I'm going to go to work, it must be something of value to me. I'm much more experienced now, so I can find films that are interesting quicker and cut out the films that don't really matter. It means more to me now because my kids are going to see them, and I want them to be proud.

[1998, on why he moved to Los Angeles] A lot of the attraction before I came out was the fame, the lifestyle... now my motivation is more, "I want to be good!".

There are no secrets in our house. We tell the kids, "Mom and Dad are going off to kiss.".

We make breakfast like everyone else and it's chaos and pancake batter splashed all over the place and bath time at night. Ultimately, I'm dad. I have the concerns a dad has. Is everyone safe? Am I spending enough time with them? These are the things that keep me awake.

[on comparing his own parenting style with that of his character in The Tree of Life (2011)]: They say actions speak louder than words. It's even more true with my kids. And so it's quite important to me not to put my frustrations on them or bring them in the door. I want to keep them to be free and not encumbered with my junk. In the film it's the exact opposite. I find it very sad, a very sad man who was embittered by his situation, doesn't feel he can get ahead, always feels like he's on the losing end, feels quite oppressed by his surroundings and predicament, doesn't know why it isn't working out for him and why is it working out for other people. That poisoned view of things.

[2011] I spent the '90s trying to hide out, trying to duck the full celebrity cacophony. I started to get sick of myself sitting on a couch, holding a joint, hiding out. It started feeling pathetic. It became very clear to me that I was intent on trying to find a movie about an interesting life, but I wasn't living an interesting life myself. I think that my marriage [to Jennifer Aniston] had something to do with it. Trying to pretend the marriage was something that it wasn't.

[2011, on Angelina Jolie] One of the greatest, smartest things I ever did was give my kids Angie as their mom. She is such a great mom. Oh, man, I'm so happy to have her.

[2011, on learning to be a parent] I was surprised at how automatic it is, how much of it is instinctual. And now I have a great confidence and trust in those instincts. I mean, one sound at night and you're awake and up because they may need you. Or when they start to have a tantrum, you know to divert them from spinning out by helping them focus on something. It just goes on and on. I tell them, "You can make a mess, but you've got to clean it up.".

[2011, on his religious upbringing] I had my problems with it. It doesn't work for me. I had a lot of questions. But to get to that point where I actually questioned something that I'd based my life on - it wasn't until I was 20 that I really started separating from it, knowing that the ideas didn't make sense. I remember this scary moment where I didn't have anything to pin my existence on, to be comforted by. At the same time, it didn't work for me, man. I had to go up against this thing. I've since... My family accepts me for who I am and they worry for me because I'm gonna burn in an eternal pit of fire. But...

[on the stress of filming Interview with the Vampire (1994)] One day, it broke me... I called David Geffen, who was a producer... I said, "David, I can't do this anymore. I can't do it. How much will it take to get me out?". And he goes, very calmly, "Forty million dollars.".

[on playing the leading character in The Tree of Life (2011)] That's certainly not my father. But I do understand the father-knows-best mentality, the oppression the father figure can have on his kids, the pressure he is under to be the leader and provide, and feeling like he's falling short and having wants and desires himself. The tragedy is coming home and bringing that on the kids, and then feeling bad about it. It's just this vicious cycle.

[2012: on whether he would consider becoming a director] No, not a chance. It makes sense on some level, but I really enjoy being a creative producer and I enjoy my day job as an actor. It's enough for me. I want to also be a dad, first and foremost. After two days it gets itchy. I miss them. I just know how I'd be. I see how much time it takes to mount the thing and put it together. It wouldn't be a good match.

[on the Academy Awards nomination process] I've been around long enough to know it's very fickle and it's a cyclical wheel. But I will say this: it's surprisingly fun when your number comes up.

[2012: while accepting the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor for Moneyball (2011) and The Tree of Life (2011)] This is a really big honor for me, considering I'm a guy who had never ridden in an airplane until I was 25. That first trip was here in 1989 to New York. I had an audition for a soap opera. But I had to put myself up, and I stayed at a friend's apartment. That apartment was in the Village on Christopher Street. My first impression of the city was: my god, there's a lot of guys around here. But they're so nice. This is a real pleasure for me to see some of the faces behind the formidable names that instill such fear and reverence in the film industry, although I thought you'd be taller. We are complex, we are mysteries to ourselves, we are difficult to each other, we live in continual flux and instability and conflict. Christians and Muslims, Democrats and Republicans, Denby and Rudin.

I grew up very religious, and I don't have a great relationship with religion. I oscillate between agnosticism and atheism.

I think I'm at a point now where I feel like I can jump into anything and lay something down that's quality. Someone may be better at it - or maybe not - but I know that if I have a feeling for it, then I can make it interesting. But even more as I get older, it's about the company that I keep. That's the most important thing to me - that if I'm gonna spend however long it takes to make a movie, give up 14 hours a day for however many weeks or months, then it's very important for me to know that I'm working with people who I respect and enjoy and that we're going for something together.

[on World War Z (2013)] We liked this idea of taking a genre and using that as, I guess, a metaphor for pandemics, and if one of those pandemics jumped the tracks. Would we be ready? What countries would be in better shape, what countries would take the biggest hit? A movie is only good if it speaks about our time, if it's personal in some way, and it plugs into the zeitgeist to irritate a little bit. I think we got that here.

[2012, on The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)] Jesse James is absolutely one of my favourites, and I think the more it decants the better it gets. About three other people think that as well, but I think it's got legs. It's elegant. Andrew Dominik is a phenomenal director.

[on The Devil's Own (1997)] We had no script. Well, we had a great script but it got tossed for various reasons. To have to make something up as you go along - Jesus, what pressure! It was ridiculous. It was the most irresponsible bit of filmmaking - if you can even call it that - that I've ever seen. The movie was the complete victim of this drowning studio head (Mark Canton) who said, "I don't care. We're making it. I don't care what you have. Shoot something."

About Kalifornia (1993): It's kind of a B film, but it was important for me. I was going against the things I was getting at the time. I got to do character work in it, and there's humor laid in there, too.

Terrence's Voyage of Time is an incredibly beautiful and unique experiential IMAX film for children and families chronicling the birth of time, I'm very grateful to be part of such a fascinating and educational project, but I'm currently focused on my family situation and don't want to distract attention away from this extraordinary film, which I encourage everyone to see.

[Real Time with Bill Maher (2003), August 14, 2009] Because for a democracy to work, we have to know the facts to make an informed decision. Then yes, I see it. But when you see it devolving into talks of socialism and the dismantling of the country, no one is helped by this. And let me tell you, I guarantee you these people have never been to a socialist country. I've been to a socialist country. We're fine. We're great.

I find all of my performances come down to mathematics in a sense-how do you approach the problem of this character? Sometimes I crack that problem, sometimes I don't. My best example is 12 Monkeys, because I thought in the first half I nailed it, and in the second half I was playing on the gimmick of what worked in the first.

[on A River Runs Through It (1992)] That was a big deal. I grew up on Redford films and Newman films and Clint Eastwood and a lot of the Westerns. It was a beautiful story and one I understood because of how I grew up. Robert Redford made a quality movie. But I don't think I was skilled enough. I think I could have done better. Maybe it was the pressure of the part, and playing someone who was a real person - and the family was around occasionally - and not wanting to let Redford down. But again, it's been a long time since I've seen it. I was much more critical then. I was more self-conscious.

[on playing one of the leading characters in Kalifornia (1993)] That was the first time I stepped inside and did some more character stuff and really made some great discoveries. Taking that role set a direction for me, where I bounced back and forth between different kinds of things - I started messing it up a little bit.

I remember back in the early days I hung out with Brandon Lee. He drove a hearse and lived in Echo Park. We went out one night and everyone else had peeled off, and we ended up back at his place and it was like six in the morning. A real, you know, drunk and stony night, and he proceeded that night to tell me how he thought he was going to die young like his dad. And I just chalked it up to, you know, stony 6:00 a.m. talk. Then he got The Crow (1994) the next year.