Quotes

[on Smokin' Aces (2006)] I'm not a huge advocate of violence for violence's sake, but what makes this film okay in that regard for me is that it's a heightened reality. It's kind of like Ocean's Eleven on acid - it's hyper-real, cartoon violence.

[on how important it is to him that he's involved in other facets of filmmaking besides acting] Well, it's great. I mean, it's great to have that opportunity. It's just been like, without meaning it to sound too arrogant, I have a lot of stuff in me that I know I can do and I've wanted to have the opportunity to do and now thanks to people like Gavin O'Connor and David Michod, I'm starting to kind of spread my wings a little bit more and get new opportunities. And I'm fucking ready for them and I'm dying to do more stuff, but at the same time I want to keep writing projects. I want to write characters that I want to play. I want to direct. I want to do a lot of stuff. I just don't want to do crap movies, man, because I just love that I can get up and talk about them and talk to journalists about stuff that I'm really proud of. I mean, fuck, man - there is so much money out there to be made out there in the industry, and unfortunately the most money gets given for the subpar quality projects, so I don't need money to survive. I don't need shit tons of money, I just want to be satisfied all the time, and I want to be proud. I don't want to sit here and talk to you and know that in your mind you're going, "I fucking hated this movie and this guy is a sellout and I hate him." So we've got high expectations of ourselves at Blue Tongue and I've just got a high expectation myself. And I know I've got a brother, Nash, who if I took a step too far out of line or did it a couple of times in a row in terms of choosing the wrong project, he would slap me down (laughs). And I'm like you - I just love good movies. And not every movie you're going to end up in is always going to turn out right, but at least walk into it with the right intention. I have an issue with the commercial aspect of moviemaking: I don't see why a movie can't make a lot of money and also be good. We see at least two or three of them every year. Like last year I think was a really good year for movies, and they made some money and they also satisfied people on a number of levels. But there is some shit movies out there now. - it fucking pisses me off - and I hate it when a shit movie comes out that's obviously made just to make money, and it does make that money and it lets everybody know that it's okay to make shit movies because you can get rich off of it. I hate those people (laughs). There has got to be a business, yes, obviously it's a film business. But at least try along the way.

The sum total of all my stop-starts have made me less concerned about the future. I'm just aware now that I'll always land on my feet somehow.

I have always stuck to my guns about what I want from the work and what interests me. I've never been seduced down the evil path. The path of taking the money.

My brother and I are best friends.

'The Great Gatsby' ticked so many boxes for me.

There's a real sense of fighting and destruction in our DNA that we don't get in touch with.

I'm on the list that I thought I'd never be on. I'm not sitting here thinking, 'God, I might get this part' or 'is it too late for me to play Hamlet?' It's really about: who do I get to work with? There's so many people on that list.

It's tricky. I've never been standing at the top of the tree with tons of money thrown at me. I've never really had a profile. So in a way I have this 'nothing to lose' attitude.

Sometimes, the smaller roles in movies can be the most interesting. If you only take the stance that you'll only play central characters in movies, you'll find yourself not being able to indulge in that morally grey terrain that makes support characters so rich and interesting.

The first video I ever watched was on a Beta system because everyone thought Beta was the way but then it ended up being video so we backed the wrong horse.

The tricky thing becomes: Do you know yourself well enough to then portray that on screen? And for me, I find that really hard. I'd rather hide behind accents and funny walks.

I'm single, footloose and fancy free, I have no responsibilities, no anchors. Work, friendship and self-improvement, that's me.

One of the things I've always enjoyed is moving around and staying fit. Physicality is such a big part of being an actor, but it's also about stillness and silence.

I'm not going to allow myself to second-guess projects. I'm just going to do the ones that I fully love and believe in - that's a real privilege.

Every job leaves its residue, a bit of extra knowledge, a new skill-set.

Whereas 'Avatar' and other movies get shocks out of their three-dimensionality, 'Gatsby' is going to be about inviting the audience into this larger-than-life drama, letting them almost be inside the room rather than looking at it through the window. I think it will really work.

I remember my brother Nash had just directed me in 'The Square,' and I was sitting in Australia going: 'No one's called me about working for ages. I don't know if I'm ever going to get another job.'

The biggest difference for me is momentum. On a smaller film you get to shoot sometimes four or five scenes a day and you've got to do the tight schedule. I think I really feel the luxuries of a big budget film.

To act with a tennis ball and imagine it's a tentacle, or if you're in some kind of wilderness film and you go, 'Okay, we can't have a grizzly bear here, but imagine when you step over the rock there there's a grizzly bear.' I don't know. They're tough moments.

That's one of the great privileges, being an actor, is that someone pays you and sends you off to learn about something that otherwise you'd never know about.

There's the pressure of being a No. 1 on the call sheet, being a lead actor. There's almost this feeling like being captain of the team. You want to put a bit of energy into actually setting a good example.

I'm a pacifist.

I can't sing or dance.

Whenever you deal with science fiction you are setting up a world of rules. I think you work hard to establish the rules. And you also have to work even harder to maintain those rules, and within that find excitement and unpredictability and all that stuff.

I'm hardly digging trenches for a living. I'm getting to tap into my boyhood fantasies of being a larger-than-life character.

It feels good to be fit and strong.

I never really think too much about my voice. Infact when I was at drama school someone told me I wouldn't ever really be an actor because I had a lisp and I got terrified by that. I went to a speech therapist once and then I thought 'What am I doing this for?' because the two actors at that time that I really looked up to, and I still do, are Ben Mendelsohn and Noah Taylor. They were the two guys in all the movies and they both had lisps!

[Which Australian crime films should we be looking out for?] I've been away for a bit, but I have my ear to the ground. I think Rob Connolly's Paper Planes is a promising film. Son of a Gun gets a good rap.

[Desert island film, book and album?] Maybe just give me the longest film, the longest book and the longest song... and I'll just read/watch and listen to a small piece every day. Parcel it out.

[When were you last star struck?] Sports stars affect me more than movie folk do. One night ten years or so ago I met Sergey Bubka. Boris Becker, Martina Navratilova, and Nadia Comaneci. Sergey was my favorite because I got to tell him that I had created a pole-vault situation in my yard with elastic as the bar and a sapling branch as my pole.

[What's next?] I'm directing a small movie. Wish me luck. I'm excited and terrified.

[What moment in your career are you most proud of?] I think one great moment for me was performing on-stage at the Opera House in Henry IV as "Hal." It was the same theatre that I had sat in the audience of when I decided I could maybe be an actor myself.

[What's your drink of choice?] Vodka. If I have too much of that... my next drink of choice is water.

[What's been the best advice anyone has ever given you?] Do what you love if you have the luxury of pursuing it.

[Have you ever cheated death?] I had a scary time surfing in Sydney. The surf was big and while I surfed (I'm far from a pro...) it got a little out of control. I'm not sure how close I was to actually giving up and going under but I remember having the clear thought that I was done... and that thought was not good.

[What advice would you give to your twenty-year-old self?] Smoking is for idiots. Put it down. I don't smoke anymore. But did for a while.

[What song did you wake up to this morning?] No song. By mid-morning I had listened to some Nas though. A collaboration with Damian Marley.

[What was the best thing about working with Ridley Scott on Exodus: Gods and Kings?] I find doing all movies can be strange, pretending to be a part of a world so far removed from my own experience. But on one hand I could view the whole thing as a massive fable and I just rolled with it and enjoyed it.

[2016 G'Day USA gala] There's a really great community of Australian people in Hollywood and I think it's good when they all get together and celebrate something. I'm just knocked out by this, and there are so many people in this room who have given me great advice and helped me get where I am.

I think one of [my brother] Nash's greatest qualities is actually one of his most hidden qualities, and that's just how sensitive he is. Not a lot of people actually know that until they get to know him a little bit better. Some of his worst habits are actually quite positive - I actually get the shits with how organised he is because I'm not. I'm a mess and he's so organized. That pisses me off because it makes me feel bad about myself. One of the most annoying things is that one of his ways to unwind is to play a computer game really loud, really late at night. When we're both in the apartment at the same time... it's like, "Would you turn that thing down! I'm trying to sleep!"

When we're in the garage and I had [former roommate and The Great Gatsby (2013) co-star] Jason Clarke in a clinch - and Jason's probably *very* happy [Baz Luhrmann] didn't put the slapping takes in there, by the way - I used to sit Jason in the chair and really slap his face. Baz, at one point said, 'You're too far to the left,' and I picked him up again and put him down, and I remember slapping him about four times in a row and he *hated* me for it... I was getting back [at him]: 'That's for not cleaning up the sink!'

Jason [Clarke] and I were laughing about this the other day. Jason has this amazing house not far from where I live now and has a career that's going exceptionally well. But there was a time when it was all very different. We were scratching around out the back of Phillip Noyce's house wearing our trackie daks and Jason would be like, 'Hey Joelski, I've got an audition for a spaceship movie.' So I'd be reading the role of the lieutenant to his captain, or he'd be reading the wife to my husband. We helped each other with auditions. Both of us were at the point where we had run out of money and were about to fly home with our tails between our legs. There was a time when I thought, "Is this final part of my plan going to be a fizzer? Is the American part of the scheme not going to work out?"

On the production difficulties on Jane Got a Gun (2015): When you sit down at a great restaurant and you order a meal, it's best that you don't go into the kitchen and have a look at how it was cooked.