“It’s good to know that other people think differently, and that’s what makes the characters interesting.”

It’s very rare to get a film script that has good dialogue. A lot of the time, you spend on film sets really fighting to find out how to say the words.

I’ve had my body manipulated so many different times for so many different reasons, whether it’s paparazzi photographers or for film posters.

Empathy is the main thing, putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes and trying not to judge.

You have to learn the rules to be able to know how to break them.

I would be extremely stupid if I said that my looks had absolutely nothing to do with what I do, it [moviemaking] is a visual medium. I’m perfectly aware of that, the face and the body help. Of course they do.

I see the world through my eyes. It’s sometimes a strange world.

I’ve always gravitated towards people who are extreme. Whether its drugs, or kicking down doors. Normally, the people in my life had to escape to get back.

I think it doesn’t matter where you’re from, we all need a bit of romance.

I don’t quite understand what Tolstoy’s actual personal view of Anna is – whether he likes her or hates her, whether she’s the heroine or the antiheroine.

The most important thing in playing any character is not judging.

Be happy in your body. It’s the only one you’ve got, so you might as well like it.

The whole point for me is to change as much as possible. If I’ve done one movie, I’ve done that, move on.

I wish I was Sienna Miller. When I talk to her, I hope a bit of her party personality will rub off on me, but it never does.

I think everybody has the right to a private life.

I like watching films when I don’t know anything about the people.

In film as a medium, you’re often given a baddie and a goodie and told what to think about them; it’s usually a very definite point of view.

When you’re doing a character, you want to know the full landscape. You want to know them spiritually, mentally and physically.

One of the first things I was taught as an actor was, ‘Don’t judge the character.’

When you play characters, you shouldn’t just be putting on their characteristics – you should be finding it inside yourself.

You’re not free unless you can show the good and the bad, all sides of them. So to me, when I play a character, it’s important that I can show every aspect of them.

I try to look at every role the same way, regardless of whether the character is real or the character is a fantasy. I always start from myself, because you have to know yourself first.

I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.

When your intelligence don’t tell you something ain’t right, your conscience gives you a tap you on the shoulder and says ‘Hold on’. If it don’t, you’re a snake.

You can make some inferences about a man’s character if you know something about the conditions in which he has survived and prospered.