Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Every Irish person of my generation and earlier, we were raised Catholic and we'd have to learn it in school, we'd to learn the catechism by rote.
I think you fall out of love with theater while you're doing your eighth show of your eighteenth week and your body is saying, "Please make this end."
I'm interested in pressure, I'm interested in duress. All the great works of art, or film or literature, in my opinion, have elements of those in them.
I've always been an actor who works in every medium - I've worked in theater and film and television - I've never seen any difference between the three.
There's a lot of comedy in Intermission but it's got this depth. It's not comedy for comedy's sake - it's informed by something else. I like stuff like that
There's a lot of comedy in Intermission but it's got this depth. It's not comedy for comedy's sake - it's informed by something else. I like stuff like that.
If you behave like a celebrity, then people will treat you like a celebrity, and if you don't, they won't. There's not much to write about me in the tabloids.
You take the job very seriously and between action and cut, that's where your focus should be. And then there's a lot of levity in between and a lot of good fun.
Then I wanted the character to be feminine as opposed to effeminate. Because it's easy to be camp or queen. Anyone can do that. What's difficult is to play feminine.
I enjoy all aspects of it, I don't have a preference for any medium. I think each of them has its attractions and I would hope they each inform the other in some way.
I think any actor that says 'I never watch my films' is a liar because you have to watch it at least once and also you're going to watch it when you're doing your ADR.
And once you're unafraid with death, I think your capacity for violence is immediately increased. Once you're unafraid of death, you are a very, very dangerous adversary
I loved living in London in my 20s and 30s, but after a while, you kind of go, 'Right, is this it? Is this it for the rest of my days? Or is there some other possibility?'
I was obsessed with Batman as a kid. I did the film in part just to be near the Batmobile. But I also think [director] Christopher Nolan made a very fine, intelligent film.
I like being at home with my music and my books. I’ve done all the partying, I’ve done enough partying for four or five people as a young fella. But now I like the quiet life.
I will always love film, the romance of film, sitting in the darkened room with strangers and watching a story for two hours - that will always remain and never be eroded by television.
I think audiences are a lot more intelligent than what we give them credit for and understand that an actor is playing a role and that doesn't mean he can't play different types of roles.
I've had the pleasure and the great luck to work with some incredible actors over the years and you have to observe and learn and take something from it and try and become better yourself.
At the moment I'm doing this space movie, so I'm obsessed with physics and space travel. I know three months down the line it's gone. Then I'll be able to superficially say stuff about space.
I come from a long line of teachers. Not only did I not go into the family business; I had an aborted law career and I played in bands. 'Disco Pigs' was my first professional acting experience.
I think if you play characters, it's very important not to ever tag them with any sort of disorder, or diagnose them, or whatever. You have to normalize the behavior to get inside the character.
From a very young age I had an ambition to be a musician, and to do that professionally. That's what I pursued until I was about 20, playing in bands that were taken pretty seriously at that stage.
A director, I forget who, told me that it takes 30 years to make an actor. And I believe that. You have to learn your craft, learn your trade - and also you have to live a life and experience things.
It's obvious that if you're going to play a character you need to amass information about that person and about their environment or their era that they're in and use as little or as much as necessary
It's obvious that if you're going to play a character you need to amass information about that person and about their environment or their era that they're in and use as little or as much as necessary.
I started off in theater; I did exclusively theater for four or five years. In the last few years, television has come along but I can still make film. I feel very privileged that I can move between them.
It was very much about performances, the whole ensemble thing was just great - everybody working together. Sometimes it didn't feel like a film set. It wasn't technically driven, it was very, very enjoyable
It was very much about performances, the whole ensemble thing was just great - everybody working together. Sometimes it didn't feel like a film set. It wasn't technically driven, it was very, very enjoyable.
I don't consider myself a shy person necessarily, but there's something about getting under the skin of a character and allowing you an abandon or a sense of courage that you would never have in your own life.
I feel very lucky to be making good work still. The confidence of youth, or that sort of competitiveness you get when you're 22 or 23, the impatience - that's probably been tempered. Hopefully I'm slightly better company.
I don't care if people perceive me as always selling out because I'm doing a studio picture. For me, the whole thing is you should be diverse in your choices; that's the beauty of being an actor, you should be able to do that.
I think there's such a thing as a performance gene. If it's in your DNA it needs to come out. For me, it originally came out through music, then segued into acting and came out through there. I always needed to get up and perform.
I remember being 18 and being fed up with everything - fed up with society, fed up with the political system, fed up with myself - and then you kind of go, 'Actually, this voting thing is amazing,' because you have a chance to change it, right?
I suppose I've always been attracted to this sort of outsider in general - in literature, in music, politics, whatever - and to the person that is able to be relentlessly themselves. I don't think that I have that quality, that strength of mind.
All I've tried to do as an actor is follow the good writing. That's been my main drive. It's not always possible, so when you do come upon it, like when I came upon this, you realize pretty quickly this is something you need to be involved with.
The boring people are the worst. I think it's obvious, I think people have always had phobias about flying for years even before 9/11 and everything like that. It just taps into that and it taps into who you are going to sit next to on the plane.
I know I am old-fashioned, but I don't want to bring out a fashion line, I don't want to bring out an album. I just want to do the work as best as I can, and if that effects change for somebody, then that is great. I don't want to change the world.
I try not to think retrospectively. It's important, as an artist, to look forward, always. I do try to take work that involves some challenge. If you approach a piece of work and you're going, "Yeah, yeah, I can do that," then that's kind of a red flag.
[We were very lucky that Sean [ Ellis ] researched the film [Anthropoid ] for many years.] We sort of piggybacked on his knowledge, and he gave us a lot of materials, which we read. For me, the greatest resource was actually shooting the film in Prague.
It seemed to work on camera. And there's very few films - because you make a lot of films and you meet people and you work very intensely and intimately and then you're gone - but there's a few where you actually make friends, and this [The Fall] was one.
I've always felt kind of safe on stage, protected. I've talked to other performers about this and they feel the same things, particularly in the live arena. I never get nervous going on stage to do a play. Doing film or television I'll have more butterflies.
I never make a distinction between doing a film in Hollywood or doing a film independently. It's just the story. It's always the story for me. The constants are that it should challenge me and I shouldn't repeat myself. And the story should always be a story worth telling.
I'm Irish and very proud of being Irish, but as an actor, your extraction should be secondary, really. You should be able to embody whatever character it is, wherever the character comes from. That's always been important, for me. I'm an actor who's Irish, not an Irish actor.
'She's a Mystery to Me' was released in 1987, when I was 11 or something, and I absolutely adored the song. This song was written by Bono and The Edge, and the story goes that Bono woke up with the tune in his head, then thought that the only voice who could sing this song is Roy Orbison.
I'm kind of loath to pick one project over another or whatever. You go into every film sort of thinking it'll be your best work, and that's necessary. I think in this business, you really have to be forward-looking the whole time. I think nostalgia is sort of the death knell for any artist.
Nearly everyone says New York is their number one city in the world, don't they? It certainly is mine. But I feel like the ship sailed for me in terms of living in New York because I think you need to live there when you're in your 20s - when you can be poor and energetic and just don't care.
There's always a level where you think you can improve and do better. Certainly at the beginning... I did four years of straight theater without ever having a part in a movie, and I remember being far more nervous on a film set than I was on the stage. It took a while for that to become less so.
There's this thing that's come about that wasn't there when I started acting which is they do this thing called a chemistry test. They put a camera in front of two people, it's usually a boy and a girl, and they go, [whispering]. It's impossible. You can't manufacture it or film it, it just has to happen.
I hope that I have gained some wisdom, but I don't know. I have kids, and that certainly puts things into perspective. I think I'm a more patient person. I hope I'm a more patient person. I'm a little more relaxed about the peripheral side of this business, which I used to find very confusing and alarming.
You do your due diligence, you read as much as you can, and then, ultimately, I find that you discard that and you concentrate on the characters [of 'Antropoid'] and you can draw on [the research] if you wish, but I think ultimately it's about bringing as much truth and honesty to the portrayal as possible.