When you're making movies you've got to get obsessive.

A lot of actors say that theater's the thing for them. And that's great, and I'm not one to speak with any authority about it because of not having done it properly. For me, movies are what I love.

As an actor, I don't feel like it's necessary to watch a great deal of films. In fact, I think it can lead to imitation and unhealthy competition, which just isn't needed.

I become a bit of a blank page in public. And that's precisely why I like acting.

You're creating a different world and the actor's job is to be able to convince the audience to enter into that world, whether it be actually something that you recognize from your own life or not.

It's the actors who are prepared to make fools of themselves who are usually the ones who come to mean something to the audience.

“Remember what is unbecoming to do is also unbecoming to speak of.”

"I'm no editor, no artisan, no expert. And certainly no arbiter of what you should buy, wear, or eat."

"Wanting to be an actor and wanting to be famous are different."

"When I'm playing a character, I don't wear perfume."

“As an actor, a Dogme film is not that big a difference. You don’t have to wait for the lighting, so you get a better rhythm. It’s the camera guy and the editor and the sound guy who are in trouble. Because they can’t do what they’re used to doing.”

Heroes are people who rise to the occasion and slip quietly away.

In Los Angeles, I had the good fortune of anchoring the news right before Johnny Carson came on, so to see him, the Hollywood stars watched me first.

No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.

“It is not appropriate to act and speak like men asleep.” 

“Movies are a fad. Audiences really want to see live actors on a stage.”

I'm not particularly interested in playing characters that think the way I do.

I'm not interested in playing characters who see the world through my prism. I think the journey of understanding any character is to see how they tick and how they differ from you.

Things present themselves to you, and it's how you choose to deal with them that reveals who you are. We all say a lot of things, don't we, about who we are and how we think. But in the end it's your actions, how you respond to circumstance that reveals your character.

What I love about the theater is that you know who you're acting for: your audience. And the thing I find really hard in film is, you don't. The audience is invisible. And we're sitting there, hoping there's other people out there.

I certainly think that when I flick through all the magazines at the hairdresser's I like to see and am drawn to images that have an intelligence and mind at work behind them.

I feel like I've been marinated in Australian theatre.

I'm a horrible person. And it's just coming out in my work.

It's part of my job. You can't play Veronica Guerin sounding like this. It just wouldn't wash. But what I find fascinating about doing an accent - unless it's a farce - is that it's not slapped on.