quotes:
We’re all damaged in our own way. Nobody’s perfect. I think we are all somewhat screwy, every single one of us. ... If there’s any message to my work, it is ultimately that it’s OK to be different, that it’s good to be different, that we should question ourselves before we pass judgment on someone who looks different, behaves different, talks different, is a different color.
People say I make strange choices, but they’re not strange for me. My sickness is that I’m fascinated by human behavior, by what’s underneath the surface, by the worlds inside people.
There are necessary evils. Money is an important thing in terms of representing freedom in our world. And now I have a daughter to think about. It's really the first time I've thought about the future and what it could be.
If you love two people at the same time, choose the second one. Because if you really loved the first one, then you wouldn’t have fallen for the second.
If you catch me saying ‘I am a serious actor,’ I beg you to slap me.
Who knows what goes on underneath the table, outside the frame? I may have a feather duster down my pants. It's not necessarily sexual, either. If I'm having a difficult time with a scene, getting too serious, I like to take a handheld duster or maybe a wrench, shove it down my pants and play the scene that way. Any object that doesn't belong--it takes your mind off the seriousness of the situation. Just when you're bursting into tears you realize there's a dust mop in your shorts.
If someone were to harm my family or a friend or somebody I love, I would eat them. I might end up in jail for 500 years, but I would eat them. ... I had an incident with a really dumb magazine called Voici where they printed a photograph of Lily-Rose, a long-lens shot from very far away, and I just went ballistic. You can sue them — I've sued a couple of times, Vanessa's sued and we win every time — but this time I was beyond suing. I just wanted to beat whoever was responsible into the earth — I just wanted to rip him apart. So I tracked him down and gave him a few suggestions about how to live life and stay healthy and he took my advice. Because that's just unacceptable. They can do anything they want to me — and most tabloids have — but not my kid, not my pure, innocent little baby. She didn't ask to be in this circus.
I despise those prick actors who say, "I was in character," and "I became the character," and all that stuff. It's hideous. It's just masturbation at the highest level.
When I was a kid back in Kentucky, we went to this church where my uncle preached. It was kind of a weird Baptist, full-on kind of place. People kept running up to the pulpit and grabbing his ankles and being saved. Lots of crying. Even then, at six or seven, I questioned how pure the emotion could be if it were on such display.
As a teenager, I was so insecure. I was the type of guy that never fitted in because he never dared to choose. I was convinced I had absolutely no talent at all. For nothing. And that thought took away all my ambition too. ... I’m shy, paranoid, whatever word you want to use. I hate fame. I’ve done everything I can to avoid it.
My body is a journal in a way. It’s like what sailors used to do, where every tattoo meant something, a specific time in your life when you make a mark on yourself, whether you do it yourself with a knife or with a professional tattoo artist.
I don’t pretend to be captain weird. I just do what I do.
I’ve known that there have been a kind of select group of people, amazing die-hard supporters, even through some of the more, shall we say, odd films. These people, bless them, have stuck with me the whole length of the road. To say that you appreciate it is not nearly enough. It’s part of the essence, or fuel, of what keeps you going. These people are my boss; they’re the ones who keep me employed. A couple of times, they could have said, Let’s abandon him. And they haven’t. You don’t want to let them down.
For me, ambition has become a dirty word. I prefer hunger. To be hungry-great. To have hopes, dreams-great.
LA is too fast, too pacy. There is too much of everything, just too much. In France, I can have distance and sort of see the game for what it is, rather than trying to understand it from the inside. I'm not swimming in the soup bowl. I'm not getting overcooked in that big stewpot. Fame, celebrity--it's not such a big deal in Europe. People seem to understand that you just have a weird job. They're not running after you, trying to carve chunks out of you. It's strange in the states. Most fans here are great, but there's a handful who have seen the movies and feel they know you. They think it's alright to touch you and ask personal questions.
I want to do kiddie movies now. I'm fed up with adult movies — most of them stink. At a certain point with movies it becomes all about mathematics: this has to lead up to this, this has to lead up to that — you're always bound by some kind of formula. But since having kids and watching lots of animated cartoons and all those great old Disney films, I think they're better, they're much better. They're more fun and they take more risks.
The only gossip I’m interested in is things from the Weekly World News – ‘Woman’s bra bursts, 11 injured’. That kind of thing.
There are four questions of value in life: What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for? And what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love.