Quotes

One of the most painful things of the L.A. Confidential (1997) character I played was that the author, James Ellroy, kept telling me that Bud White wasn't a drinker. I said, "Come on, this is 1953. He's a blue-collar bloke, a cop. You're telling me he doesn't sit around with the boys after his shift and have a beer?". And Ellroy says, "Absolutely not." So for five months and seven days, I didn't have a drink. It's probably the most painful period of my life.

[on winning the Best Actor Oscar] If you grow up in the suburbs of anywhere, a dream like this seems kind of vaguely ludicrous and completely unattainable. But this moment is directly connected to those imaginings. And for anybody who's on the downside of advantage, and relying purely on courage, it's possible.

It's not really what I'd call a movie. I was stunned that Miramax wanted to buy it. I mean it's really rude. It showed me in a really bad light. It's also shoddily made. It's cobbled together. [expressing surprise that a low-budget documentary of his band, 30 Odd Foot of Grunts, has been picked up for worldwide distribution]

[on meeting Robert De Niro] I felt this tap on my shoulder and I turned around and, you know that De Niro fellow? Well, he didn't say a word. He didn't say "Hello", "Good evening" or anything or "Hi, I'm Robert". He just looked at me and he nodded his head and he smiled. And he walked off.

You don't have to like an actor to do a scene with him. You don't have to like a director. But it's just better if you do. And I think, you know, you've got to begin that with respect.

All that stuff, this public persona of me - let's call him "the wild man" - that is not helpful. It doesn't make me more of a box office draw. It's the quality of my work that makes people want to go to my films.

I always say I've given 24 insufficient performances and I'm looking forward to the time in my life when I'll do something that I think is good. There's always stuff you can do better, stuff that maybe you didn't uncover enough. But if you do something that you truly believe is perfect, then that's got to be the last movie you do.

I'd like to play passionate women, but no one will let me.

If there's anything about someone's life that's important enough to make a movie about it, I have to take responsibility to get all of it right. It's a huge responsibility.

The older I get, the crotchetier I'm going to get about that integrity. I don't think, just because you have the public's attention, it's now a prerequisite for you to completely sell out your moral center. I don't think that's okay. If I ever stop being the guy that can answer your question straight and look you in the eye and give you my opinion, then I should stop making films.

I'm still excited by it. I still love the process. I want to make movies that pierce people's hearts and touch them in some way, even if it's just for the night while they're in the cinema; in that moment, I want to bring actual tears to their eyes and goosebumps to their skin. That's what motivates me, and it may sound strange but if you're not focused on the audience, why are you bothering to make a movie?

[on Robert De Niro] He has disappointed me many times over the past ten years, with his performances in substandard movies.

When I arrived in Sydney, I spent 22 weeks in this $50-a-week place with just a bed, a cupboard and the toilet halfway down the corridor. For the first time my parents were some distance away. I did a lot of thinking and realized I appreciated what my father had instilled in me. People think that because there is a dole there they should use it, and there are a lot of ways to misuse the system. I believe in singing for my supper. I'll never accept a grant because what I do should be able to be founded purely on free enterprise.

[on Oliver Reed] Mate, he did that to himself. I have little time for the Oliver Reeds of this business. I'm not pleased that he's gone. In fact, I never had a drink with Oliver, because I didn't want to encourage him. I'll go for long periods without a drink. When I'm on the farm by myself, it's not something I even think about. But I'm not afraid to have a beer in front of a studio executive. That doesn't make me a wild man.

I'm at the bottom of a well. I can't communicate how dark my life is right now. I'm in a lot of trouble. I'll do my best to solve the situation in an honorable way. I'm very sorry for my actions. I will spend the rest of my life if it takes it, trying to make it up with my wife. I'm pleased that my son isn't able to compute what's going on at the moment because that would be a heartbreaking thing. One thing that I don't want to do is imply that I'm trying to make out it's somebody else's fault It's not, I know it's my fault, I've got to face up to it and deal with it. I'm not trying to be pessimistic, I'm just looking at what the situation is - it's a seven-year jail sentence.

After The Insider (1999), I know the exact chemical compounds in a commercial cigarette, but I've been smoking since I was 10. I know it's terrible, but I am a great fan of irony.

I believe if you take on characters for a living you can't make yourself into an icon in order to sell a pair of shoes.

I had a good laugh when Clooney tried to compare doing ads for suits, a car and a drink to what I do as a musician. An endorsement is about money. My music is from the heart.

I do my bit to improve the world but I think it's very important to get things done on the quiet. I'm sick to death of famous people standing up and using their celebrity to promote a cause. If I see a particular need, I do try to help. But there's a lot that can be achieved by putting a cheque in the right place and shutting up about it.

I don't do ads for suits in Spain like George Clooney or cigarettes in Japan like Harrison Ford. And on one level, people go, "Well, more fault to you, mate, because there's free money to be handed out." But to me it's kind of sacrilegious - it's a complete contradiction of the f**king social contract you have with your audience. I mean, Robert De Niro's advertising American Express. Gee whiz, it's not the first time he's disappointed me. It's been happening for a while now.

I'd move to Los Angeles if Australia and New Zealand were swallowed up by a huge tidal wave, if there was a bubonic plague in England, and if the continent of Africa disappeared from some Martian attack.

Dani was three weeks early last time, she gave birth just a few days after she was chased down the street by four photographers. Nobody cares, particularly the photographers, nobody cares to focus on what that is. She was just walking down the street with her girlfriend and they rushed her - four of them all surrounded her. So she panicked and slipped and all this sort of stuff. If I'd been there that would have been a really serious situation. I tell you right now, they will be tarred and feathered if they hassle my pregnant wife again.

[on The Passion of the Christ (2004)] Well if what I've heard about it is fair dinkum that he spent $25 million making a movie that's shot in Aramaic and Latin and he's intending to release it without subtitles, I think he's got to get off the glue. What's the point of making a movie where people can't understand what's going on? I don't understand that. If you want it for reality or whatever, I think, "Wow, what an amazing idea," but also what a waste of time if nobody can get what the point is. Well, if we know the story, if we know it that well, why did he bother making it again? Mr. Gibson, get off the glue!

I'm a virtuoso in my job in that there's not an actor I can't go into a scene with and be absolutely confident that, whatever is required of my character, I can do it.

I just didn't want to work on that movie in the type of environment that was being created because of the needs of the budget. I do charity work, but I don't do charity work for major studios.

[on turning down the role of Morpheus in The Matrix (1999)] Well, The Matrix - I just didn't get it. I couldn't get past page 42. That world was just not interesting to me.

[on his selectivity of his next film] With the Lord of the Rings, if I did that I couldn't have done A Beautiful Mind, and I just had to do A Beautiful Mind. You can't do it all, and the people who try to usually end up not being able to focus at a certain level after a while. I mean, if I'm going to drink a bottle of wine, I drink a really good bottle of wine.

[on what attracts him to prospective films] I respond to the call that says, "It's 185 A.D. You're a Roman general. You're being directed by Ridley Scott." That's something my imagination can get a hold of.

In wars, no one wins, everyone loses. There are no heroes, there's only dead people. Movies can really change things and... it becomes an educational process and I think that's the healthiest way of attacking anything. That's what I'm looking for.

[on an upcoming remake of the Robin Hood story] If you go back into the mythology, you get Robin the Beheader, who would chop off your head and your hands, take your money and keep it. So we'll have a look at that.

He was a gentle, beautiful man, a fine actor, a loyal friend. I feel deeply for his family - on the passing of friend and fellow actor, Heath Ledger.

[on spirituality] I think there's a karmic cycle, which is very, very obvious: you run around acting like a dick, and you get your ass kicked. The world just works that way.

People might say I'm uncompromising but really I am just a very straight-shooting man. If you look me in the eye and shake my hand I expect you to keep your end of the f***ing bargain. I do. It's simple.

[on theatre] Every now and then I get sort of romantic about it. But I've also got that cynical part of me where, when I read somebody saying, "I'm going back to the theatre. I'm going back to my roots," I'm like, "Oh, can't get a job, hey?".

[on studio demands for a sex scene in Gladiator (2000)] I'm sorry boys, but it doesn't suit the character. We can't be avenging the death of the wife and child, and stop for a bit of nookie along the way. I'm sorry, it's not gonna happen.

(July 2010) Do the maths - I have been smoking for 36 years, I would continuously lie to myself about how much I smoked. I was smoking 40 on an easy day, but on a day when I would be up at 4am and still up at midnight, then it was 60-plus and it just got to the point where my body was telling me I had to stop.

[1997, on L.A. Confidential (1997)] You go into these movies to play an American, you know. That's part of the fun of it for me. I can be an Australian in Australian films.

[1997, on perfecting accents] I was too kind of brave and proud to want a dialect coach because I thought that showed weakness in my armor. But then you just learn it's a more efficient way of doing it. A dialect coach is really important because it takes a certain technical responsibility off your shoulders. Otherwise, it would be very disruptive, because you've got to focus on the internal life of the character. The language is easy if you're not focusing on it, you know.

[on Oliver Reed] He drank himself to death. He sat on a bar stool until he fell off it and carried on drinking... lying in his own piss and vomit, he continued to drink till he passed out. What did the tabloids say he drank on the day he died? Something like thirty beers, eight or ten dark rums and half a bottle of whiskey. In the end, he created such a weird energy around him that no one drinking with him cared.

[from his 2002 Oscar acceptance speech] When you grow up in the suburbs of anywhere, a dream like this seems kind of vaguely ludicrous and completely unattainable. But this moment is directly connected to those childhood imaginings. And for anybody who's on the downside of advantage and relying purely on courage, it's possible.

[Speaking to Mark Lawson about his character in Robin Hood (2010)] You've got dead ears, mate. You've seriously got dead ears if you think that's an Irish accent. Bollocks. I'm a little dumbfounded that you could possibly find any Irish in that character.

I don't regret any of the choices I've made in terms of films. Everything has taught me something. Sometimes I go through the list of films I've done and I'm pretty surprised at where I've gone. Sometimes you are lucky and everything falls into place and you get to do the thing that you want in a time that is right for you, and another time it doesn't happen. But if you keep chasing that or you keep waiting for it, then the thing that you do is essentially compromised, because I'm a performer, an actor, and so give me a script and let me go to work. To hang around waiting for the absolute perfect gig, I just don't think is a sensible thing to do. I've had a lot of mates who had wonderful opportunities when they were younger and they wait for the absolutely great thing and by the time that comes around - if it comes around - they've lost a lot of ground and they see a lot of people who were perhaps at a different status at a certain point, they have worked, and now they are the names that people turn to.

There is a website that's listed all of the movies I've turned down. Somebody sent it to me once and it was a very depressing read. Kingdom of Heaven (2005) is a very good example. Two-and-a-half years of working on that script with Ridley and then he got impatient and wanted to do it while I was in the middle of Cinderella Man (2005). It was like, "Excuse me, old fella, can't you just wait?" "No, I'm not waiting, just leave that movie..." "Well, I can't leave the movie, Ridley..." But that just happens; it's the nature of the business.

[Describing his early days as an actor] I don't subscribe to any form of acting. I wanted to learn more at the National Institute of Dramatic Art, but I didn't have the money, so I would take any acting job I could find and by the time I had enough money to enroll into the school I didn't really need to go, because while I was working, I gathered all the acting knowledge and experience.

[His approach to each role he plays] Preparation and research is a privilege: I love to do it, I'm very inquisitive I also know the more work I put into the character, the more apparent it'll be on the screen.

[Describing his work ethic]wasting time on a film set is not your privilege, being on the film set is the privilege, that's why Ron Howard and I get along really well, we both see making films as a privilege, we see the fact that someone's put money for us to work in a very expensive art form.

The reality break was that my kids never saw me smoke and Charlie is a little older at six and is in that phase where he is sneaking up on me all the time. I was in my office ... and I thought I heard my office door open and I looked around and couldn't see anything, so I had my cigarette. Later on I leant over to put my cigarette out and he was lying between the couch and the table and he very definitely saw me having a smoke. And that was my very last one.

[speech at the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards] I just want to talk about what binds us together. There's two things really. One is an abiding passion for our pursuit and the other is sensitivity. I was sodomizing Jacqueline McKenzie on the set of Romper Stomper (1992) and I didn't actually intend to do that, but I was trying to keep my bits away from her bits and she'd been given one of those pieces of elastic that the girls get when you do those scenes, which protects them from all things, and my bits and pieces were in a little canvas sack with a drawstring. And it was actually my desire to keep the bits apart. It wasn't until the opening night of the film that it was pointed out by none other than Jackie McKenzie's beautiful late mother that we were in fact, in her mind, engaged in sodomy. Anyway that was just a story about sensitivity! [Dec. 2017]

I started smoking when I was ten years old, on the roof of the student Prince Hotel in Camperdown, near Sydney University. Had my first puff many years before that. I became a carrying smoker at ten. At High School used to load each sock with ... flint and matches.

My skin is really salty and I'm coughing a lot. Patches, inhaler, gum I've got all the crutches. Odd subconscious things, moving ashtrays closer to me. Checking my pockets for lighters. Just have to stay with it. Stopped coffee as well. Associate the two directly so beloved coffee got the boot as well. I'm a tea drinker again ... Day 3 a mixture of harder and easier. Didn't think about it for longer periods, but the cravings seem stronger. I'm not going backwards though. Had my inhaler to hand all morning so far. Funny, been cruising it really, but today seeing smokers everywhere. Wild dreams last night.