Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Jamie Foley - he's a very different energy to [director] Sam [Taylor-Johnson]. The whole experience was actually quite different.
Love from the fans is flattering. That's what makes the show. They are so essential to everything involved with 'Once Upon a Time.'
Every role is physical to a certain extent, but as a viewer, I don't respond well to actors doing more than they need to tell a story.
I think my lesson is to back yourself once you've been given a job. Far too often, I've been given a job and then doubted why I'm there.
It's a tiny industry. Actors all know each other to a point where you always know someone who knows the other person who worked with them.
There are so many ways to make a living that don't involve hiding in bushes opposite houses of 18-year-old girls with a camera in your hand.
That tag - underwear model - I just can't get rid of it. And it's such a bizarre, specific thing - underwear. It's like I never modelled clothes.
Basically, I've always had a complex with the way I walk. I've not always been told I've got a bad walk, but someone's always commented on my walk.
I didn't do particularly well with girls at school. I was very shy. I'm not saying that was the only reason I didn't do well with them, but I just didn't.
Throughout Ireland, there's a brilliant community of filmmakers and actors, and I guess there was always a lure to do some work in the place where I come from.
One of my favorite things about my life is that I have the same group of friends that I grew up with. I love them so dearly, and we give each other a hard time.
You want roles that challenge you and that scare you a little and where you can really discover something, even about yourself, that maybe you didn't understand.
It's funny how you get a bit older and become more accepting of things. When you're in your twenties, you're skeptical of everything. I definitely felt like that.
I defy anyone to watch interviews with Ted Bundy and not be taken by him. He was very handsome and charming and extremely intelligent and, you know, that can exist.
I want to keep an element of myself in every character I play. And maybe that's connected to finding something that you like in every character. Maybe they coincide.
I don't have specific people. There are so many people that I admire and there's directors that I'm desperate to work with that haven't even made a movie yet, probably.
There's very exciting directors who haven't made a feature yet. That's what's cool about the job - the ever-changing landscape of people you could potentially work with.
My dad was a keen actor when he was young; my auntie is heavily involved in amateur dramatics back in Northern Ireland, and my great aunt was a woman called Greer Garson.
Although just being employed as an actor is a big thing, I'm not sure I'd be satisfied playing the same character for 30 years; it's not why I want to do this for a living.
Christian Grey - he isn't a real person. He's a superhero. A myth. He's like Bigfoot! He's unbelievable. He's unattainable. There's no actor in the world who could live up to that.
I think sometimes actors are drawn to good television because you have more time to sell it, you have more time to shape a character, and to tell a story, and that's really appealing.
I got to watch Anthropoid with this Czech audience and the story means so much to the Czech people so watching it with that audience was kind of terrifying but they responded very well.
I’m not saying we had a playroom, but I’m not shocked by the sex in the book. It’s essential to tell the story. I can’t believe films that don’t invoke a sexual side of it. So it works for me.
I think people from Northern Ireland have some kind of unspoken general feeling of what it is to be around segregation. You have an awareness of it because you know how much grief it's caused.
I was and still am a massive fan of [Murphy] Cillian's work - always have been. Obviously he's a great deal older than me, so I've sort of grew up watching Cillian's work. But I'm very much a fan.
I am never going to please all 100 million people who read the book. I'll be lucky if half that number are happy with me playing Christian Grey. I know there are campaigns of hate against me already.
I'm not afraid to play the role of Christian Grey. Because I'm not like him. But I perfectly understand him. I never thought that he was a monster. He is simply woven from desires. As every one of us.
I'd known plenty of people who'd worked with Cillian [Murphy], and he was one of those people I'd only heard good things about. It's pleasing when it works like this. As Cillian said, it's not always like that.
Now and again, an actor will blow my mind by doing something really unexpected, like Mickey Rourke or Christopher Walken - you have absolutely no idea what they're going to do, which is really thrilling to watch.
I think you only watch stuff you've done once because I don't think it's that beneficial to you. I think it's important to sometimes be like, 'What's that thing I'm doing with my face? I didn't think I was doing that.'
It's funny when you know you're playing two characters and you're aware of how you have to play each one into your performance of the other. You're constantly at the back of your mind thinking and it all gets a bit confusing.
I'm not saying that experiencing loss is why I can cope with darker worlds - I'm not saying that for a second - but I think it opens up a side of you in terms of work that wouldn't be as accessible had that stuff not happened.
Because I used to play a lot of sport, I've always been in decent enough shape. When I used to get asked to do a bit of body work before a photo shoot I'd lie and say, 'Yeah, I'm going to the gym.' I literally never did anything.
I've always needed to bulk up, so until the modeling took off I was ramming Big Macs down my throat and doing plenty of bodyweight work. I'm over the Big Macs now, but I'll still drop down and do my press ups whenever I find the time.
I think you've really got to cling to what makes sense to you. Obviously, I'm not a serial murderer in my real life, so that's where you have to delve into and do all the research. But, you have to find something likable in the character.
I know because the movie's made a lot of money, everyone's relaxed a bit so there wasn't that pressure to set the tone for the movies [Fifty Shades of Grey] so I felt a little more freedom this time and it probably made it more enjoyable.
People attach too much to the idea of being a model, that you can only be a certain way to have done it. You will always be dealing with it. You're an actor who used to be a model who never trained; there are not many directors queuing up.
I think I've done two shoots in my underwear ever. They both happened to be for Calvin Klein. But that tag - 'underwear model' - I just can't get rid of it. And it's such a bizarre, specific thing - underwear. It's like I never modelled clothes.
I like playing characters who are fractured, broken. I find that more relatable, for some reason. I don't feel that I'm like that myself by nature, but there's just something that you can really grab hold of if people have a darkness in them, I think.
I'd been auditioning for parts for years. I never got any better at it. I'm crap at auditions. I know there are people who can walk into those rooms and make those lines sing on the page and get the job immediately. I wasn't one of them. I'm still not one of them.
Essentially I feel like all of that pressure when you're making the first of a franchise of [movies based on] books that mean so much to people that has so much attention on it, it can be quite paralyzing I think. I think a lot of that creeped in the first time around and it maybe affects the work.
I think when romantic comedies are done well, it's a great genre. 'When Harry Met Sally' is kind of a benchmark for me, but I'm very happy to admit that I love 'Pretty Woman.' I do! It's a great film, and so is 'Sixteen Candles.' I was a big John Hughes fan - still am. I have moments where I have to watch a Hughes film.
You're in a very nice position as an actor when you're portraying a piece of history that actually happened and portraying characters that actually existed. There's so much more to draw on and your research as an actor becomes much easier than if it's some fiction that you're trying to create a world around and background and history.
Most of the crew were staying in Monaco. But my family and I were actually staying in Nice because I had my whole family there and we wanted a little more space and to stay in a hotel. The truth is we were asleep [when the attack Bastille Day terror happened] and woke up the next morning to it and it was obviously horrific. And then the idea of going out and filming, it just felt so stupid to be working the next day and pretending that everything's cool when you're making some frivolous thing.