When you do a lot of interviews, you find yourself telling the same stories over and over. After you do it for a whole day, you say, ‘Christ, I’ve said this five times today.’ It gets fun when you get so bored you start making it all up.
People need dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy and I can’t do that as Bruce Wayne. As a man I’m flesh and blood, I can be ignored, I can be destroyed, but as a symbol, as a symbol I can be incorruptible. I can be everlasting.
There are occasions when I’ve pretended to be in a firefight, and then there are people who have really been in a firefight. Clearly it’s absolutely ridiculous, and even disrespectful, to suggest that I understand what that is.
Research can be interesting, but it can be pointless as well. The realities of making a movie often are not conducive with that. I’m not knocking it. I love doing research myself, but I admit it doesn’t always add to the performance.
I’m English. Our dentistry is not world famous.
I’m an actor I’m not a politician. I always kick myself when I talk too much about family, or personal things.
It was just the two of us, inside there with just mirrors, all the way around us. Everywhere we looked, there were these two freaks, sitting at a table, eyeballing each other.
There’s a level of confidence in the actor you’re working with that really helps a lot. It makes all the difference.
I never want to turn something down because I’m afraid to do it, because of some idea of image or whatever. That was never anything I set out to do. In fact, the opposite, I always want to confuse people in terms of any kind of image and be unpredictable in any kind of movie I make.
A lot of actors say that theater’s the thing for them. And that’s great, and I’m not one to speak with any authority about it because of not having done it properly. For me, movies are what I love.
I like being responsible for myself.
Were all conning ourselves, one way or another, just to get through life.
And I not only inherited an aversion to the nine-to-five routine, but the sense from my parents that being bored and boring is the worst thing that you can be.
In honesty, there are probably a lot of stories that can be told with Batman. I like the idea of him growing older and he can’t quite do it as much anymore.
I’ve always felt that I would rather see an actor, writer, or musician’s work, rather than actually know the person. If you know too much about an artist, it somehow lessens their ability to do their work as well.
I ain’t the first on the list that people are sending scripts to. I’m very lucky. I’ve managed to put myself in the position with some directors, who will be calling me directly, and we’re working on things and talking about things, but that’s on a purely creative level.
And being as I’m somebody who loves movies like The Machinist, I also love going along to big mass entertainment movies. I get in the mood for all kinds of movies, and so I like to try each of them.
Sometimes the truth isn’t good enough. Sometimes people have got to have their faith rewarded.
There have been many times when you spend a number of months and the finished product is not what you wanted to see. And ‘Batman Begins’ was what I wanted to see.
The blue collar milieu was something that I really understood and resonated with me and I thought was underrepresented in American cinema.