Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
It must be hard to be a female in a David Mackenzie movie. I feel like women in his films are portrayed a certain way - like broken people.
The reason I do small, independent movies is because I want to keep my soul intact and maintain some kind of integrity within this industry.
I don't think many people can say they've been the lead in a Spielberg film and still been able to live their normal life that they had before.
I think I have much more appreciation for directing and movies overall versus a performance or an actor. Their body of work is more interesting.
The complexity of the situation of having a war going on around you and what that delivers to you is that you have to figure out which side to take.
I remember when I first came to America and I saw posters for TV shows and I was like, "What?! Why does a television show deserve space on a billboard?"
Every interview I do, it's basically 'how did he do it,' and I owe it all to my representation, and my manager is basically like my mother, she's so picky.
I never realised that the Edinburgh skyline was so interesting - it's gothic and very urban and there's a lot of church spires and old brownstone buildings.
Indiana Jones is very much an old-world kind of hero. He doesn't really have any kind of superpower or rely on any kind of technology to help him out of things.
When you have a child, you are just immediately changed forever. You put yourself second. Your child comes first, and everything that you do is with them in mind.
If you're living two lives and you're lying to everyone, you're bound to slip up, in some way, you're bound to get something wrong, and you're bound to get found out.
It's hard to define somebody by one movie. I mean, unfortunately, my entire life was basically made by Billy Elliot. It was kind of created by that one catalytic moment.
What's weird is that I work with these directors and then I start channeling them. I kind of turn into them a bit - which is cool when you're working with Clint Eastwood.
I'm proud of my works. But there's not one thing that I can put my finger on and say, "That is my greatest achievement. That's my proudest moment." That's so tricky to me.
You just have to surround yourself with people who are going to support and love you before trying to sell you as a product, or push you into something you don't want to do.
Let's say that you commit a crime, you get caught, you might get sent to prison. It's going to be bad. But if you get caught spying, you're literally hanged the next morning.
We're kind of in a voyeuristic world. We have TV shows that are all about watching people do weird things in houses. People are obsessed with that. There's live coverage of it.
I think as English people, we don't want to be reminded that at one point we ruled three-quarters of the globe, and now we're a very small country that doesn't own three-quarters of the globe.
I hate the stereotype of the pitfalls of the child actor. There are so many amazing examples - Natalie Portman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jodie Foster, Drew Barrymore - of people who have made it through.
Everyone is slowly catching on to this one - and I know everyone says this - but we need to make a little more effort with the environment. Everyone says they turn off their lights, but do they really?
I often find the smaller, independent films are much more rewarding than the bigger stuff, but you do the bigger stuff because it's a business, and you've got to show your face a bit, get yourself around.
I love the old Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly movies; they're so beautiful to look at. It's such a shame we don't make them anymore. Although, I don't know how you could make tap dancing current and topical.
TV is a big business. In some ways, it's surpassed films, in terms of the way people invest in these shows and invest in these characters, and give up so much of their time to follow these people's stories.
It's a difficult position. Do you endanger your child to fight for the right thing, or do you keep your mouth shut and let your child grow up in a world where their natural rights are stripped away from them?
It's weird how an actor can read a script and think 'it's really good, it's really funny, that's going to be really dramatic...' and then you get there and say: "Oh, I have to get in it? I have to get in the water?! Are you kidding?"
As a kid I never had the impulse to climb anything. I think that most kids who live in small towns or rural areas outside of the city, that's what they do - climb walls, or trees, or whatever. To me, it was more dance classes and not being very boyish.
I think a mantra I always told myself is, "No matter how many times somebody pitches the ball at you, if you swing every time, eventually one of them is going to connect." Being yourself and persistence are two things that became my daily mantras, I suppose.
I go into meetings with some film-makers and they literally have nothing to say, they're almost bored by their own material. I'd rather work with people who are very passionate and very animated about what they want to do. People who just want to tell stories.
I think movie making can sometimes make you lazy in your approach. Occasionally you'll be shooting a scene and it's not even your coverage but you'll catch yourself slipping away and you'll see your mind going somewhere else. But you just can't afford to do that on stage.
I lost my mind at 15. I'd been shown a world where there were no boundaries, where everyone gave me all the power. And I was like, 'This is great!' Then that was gone. But I was like, 'Yeah, but I still want that.' I'd lost my humble, very quiet, introverted sensibilities which I think I definitely had as a kid.