“It’s the actors who are prepared to make fools of themselves who are usually the ones who come to mean something to the audience.”

I don’t think I’m like any of the characters I’ve played. They’re all really far from who I am.

I swear, the bigger your muscles get, the duller you are. You become fascinated with carbs and protein and ripped abs and things that are just not interesting at all.

I have this theory that, depending on your attitude, your life doesn’t have to become this ridiculous charade that it seems so many people end up living.

You have to treat yourself like a mushroom to some degree, in order to keep on discovering things.

My dad was the biggest influence on my life because he was never boring.

It’s got to do with putting yourself in other people’s shoes and seeing how far you can come to truly understand them. I like the empathy that comes from acting.

I start from scratch with each movie; I wipe the slate and I certainly don’t rely on some bag of acting tricks I’ve amassed over the years.

Art is something to be proud of. Art is no compromise. As an actor, you’re giving it up, you’re at the mercy of so many other people.

Essentially, I’m untrained, so I just go with my imagination and try to put myself as solidly as I can into the shoes of whatever person I’m going to be playing.

The art of survival is a story that never ends.

As an actor, I don’t feel like it’s necessary to watch a great deal of films. In fact, I think it can lead to imitation and unhealthy competition, which just isn’t needed.

In terms of the romantic kind of lead, I just never enjoy those movies very much. Maybe they’ll come to interest me more as I get older. I doubt it, but maybe. Romantic comedies tend to be, for me, an oxymoron.

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.

I feel like I’m pretty good but I don’t like to toot my own horn, you know. I want to let the work speak for itself and kind of move on to the next thing.

I think trying too hard to be sexy is the worst thing in the world a woman can do.

Whatever you do, do it completely. Don’t do it half-arsed. Do it more than anybody else would.

Youngsters are the most discerning audience. They want entertainment, they want issues.

The select group of people who do make realistic cinema, who do make cinema perhaps a little more acceptable to the Western audience, is a very small percentage.

I don’t want the national award… I seriously do not need any such thing. I would only want the audience to go and watch the film once and that will be more than enough for me. Once everybody should see the movie and say it is a good watch.

For me acting, comes straight from the heart. In that sense I don’t act at all. I think that to feel the character’s pain I have to be myself. Somewhere audiences see that.

I think if you’re talented and not desperate to do any film that comes your way, and are doing justice to all your roles, then you’re fine, because you can’t predict the rest. You also can’t predict the audience’s reaction.

There are people who want awards because it changes the perception of the audience. But I’m not into all that.

If you don’t come from film family, it takes time for people to register you. When you don’t come from film family, the connection with the audience takes time to build up; it happens eventually.

Fame is directly related to the kind of support you have from an audience and the love and support I have from audience is so immense and so huge, that the percentage of negativity is so small compared to that that it would be very easy for it to lose itself.