I have an issue with the commercial aspect of moviemaking: I don't see why a movie can't make a lot of money and also be good.

It's easier to play aggression and malevolence onscreen, often, than to hit softer notes.

I always wonder why people cast me in anything.

My brother and I are best friends.

I did have someone tell me that I looked like Conan O'Brien. I was like, 'What?'

I operate under the theory that all publicity is good publicity, and then, if that theory doesn't work, you just say that any newspaper article ends up on the bottom of the parrot cage. But, of course, you can't line a parrot cage with Internet bloggers, can you?

I'm the great-great-grandson of a sheep stealer.

I really like kids.

People love boxing, but you've gotta wait two or three years for your favorite boxer to have a fight.

All I can say is working with Ridley Scott is a dream come true.

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 pretty skeptical about Hollywood and its fascination with the sequel and the franchise.

Gene Hackman was a superstar in the '70s - with that face!

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.

Everybody's a mix of good and bad choices that they make.

I'm hardly digging trenches for a living. I'm getting to tap into my boyhood fantasies of being a larger-than-life character.

I'm really great at making terrible analogies.

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.

Some of us are better at owning the responsibility of our actions than others.

Some people are really good at playing the movie star - they are really good at cultivating that mystique - but I'm not really into that.

I did my holy communion, and it was amazing how quickly the stories of the Bible and God and Jesus got under my skin.

I think the life of an actor is glamorous to other people, but then the reality sets in: you don't know where you will be next year or how long you'll be there for.

I had a black belt in Shotokan as a kid.

I thought I'd be married and a father by 35.

Where does guilt and punishment lie, and are we not more expressive over remorse or guilt when other people see the badness in us?

I don't want to be too power-hungry.

I have this theory that alpha males are actually not alpha males. They're actually very scared - particularly scared of competition from a lot of men.

There's a real sense of fighting and destruction in our DNA that we don't get in touch with.

One of the things I've always enjoyed is moving around and staying fit. Physicality is such a big part of being an actor, but it's also about stillness and silence.

I learned so much by being an actor, and part of my sort-of development as a writer is big thanks to the scripts I read in my acting life.

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.

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.

I have always stuck to my guns about what I want from the work and what interests me. I've never been seduced down the evil path. The path of taking the money.

Even to this day, when I think about the fact that I'm in this 'Star Wars' world, that I'm a half-brother to Darth Vader and an uncle to Luke Skywalker, it's too hard to wrap my head around.

I wasted too much time in my twenties. I worked, but I would do theater in the evening, and during the day I would surf and do irascible things. And then, for some reason, as I got closer to my thirties, I thought, 'Okay Joel, you've wasted enough time.'

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.

The little bit of buzz around 'Warrior' led to a lot of opportunities anyway, before the movie even came out.

The best jujitsu practitioners are really serene and grounded.

The biggest difference for me is momentum. On a smaller film you get to shoot sometimes four or five scenes a day and you've got to do the tight schedule. I think I really feel the luxuries of a big budget film.

It's tricky. I've never been standing at the top of the tree with tons of money thrown at me. I've never really had a profile. So in a way I have this 'nothing to lose' attitude.

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 an incredibly liberating feeling to have a skirt on. In fact, I know you can buy skirts, and you can buy work kilts and all sorts of stuff.

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.

There's the pressure of being a No. 1 on the call sheet, being a lead actor. There's almost this feeling like being captain of the team. You want to put a bit of energy into actually setting a good example.

To me, 'Warrior' was a real turning point - probably one of the greatest experiences I've ever had as an actor on set.

The Australians are actually the worst of the criminals from the United Kingdom, but not worst as in toughest. They're the ones who did stupid little things and got caught for it. Bad criminals.

'The Great Gatsby' ticked so many boxes for me.

I reckon I would be able compare anything to anything else if you gave me enough time.

Every now and then, I have a deep thought.