If there's a message to pass to people, I'd say that it's normal to be different from others, it's good to differ from one another, and we'd better look at ourselves first before we start criticising someone who looks, acts, speaks different or has a different skin colour. I'd like to continue, even at a minimal level, what John Lennon had started. If I could do as much as a bit of what he did, if I could contribute to the elimination of hatred among us, that would be a great deal.
In terms of it being a first screenplay, literally, my hat is off to him [Wally Pfister]. I didn't see any virgin blather in screen direction, or anything like that. It was just a wonderfully executed piece, and a complicated one. The mathematics involved in putting this film together, between Jack and Wally, and the great support of Alcon, it was not a easy little operetta.
I always felt that if you're not trying something different each time out of the gate, you're being safe, and you don't ever want to find that place of safety. I like that, each time, before I even go in front of the cameras, the studio's reaction will be fear.
I got to take my kids to the London eye with no one looking at me like I was Johnny Depp. They did look at me like I was some kind of sicko walking around with beautiful kids, but I had a perfect disguise.
You're looking at each and every potential corner for an air bubble to escape. Absolutely! You're on the best of your game.
You can go out and try to do the best work that you can do within the context of what that is, but it's really gotta be about the work and what you're focusing on.
I'm not a great pothead or anything like that... but weed is much, much less dangerous than alcohol.
The only responsibility I feel is to deliver something that's new or at least to attempt that. The real responsibility is to entertain and to try and make people laugh.
I think when you are young, you are hoping that this person will be the right one. The one you are going to be in love with forever, but sometimes you want that so much, you create something that isn't really there.
People make great films. I just don't have the eyes to watch them.
Ironically, it was only maybe a year prior to Tim calling I had re-read Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, and what I took away from it was these very strange, little cryptic nuggets that he'd thrown in there.
I really loved the idea of playing opposite Marlon Brando and being the crazy one.
Tomorrow it'll all be over, then I'll have to go back to selling pens again.
I really approached the film as if it was a white big piece of paper and I was going to draw a picture on it. And whether that picture was good or bad, whatever people thought of it, what they could never take away was that it was my picture.
And then, 'Why is a raven like a writing desk?' Those things just became so important to the character. You realize that the more you read it, if I read the book again today, I'd find 100 other things that I missed last time. It's a constantly changing book.
I never wanted to be the guy people looked at. I felt I could only be myself when I was alone, that I turned into some kind of novelty. The only way I could get through that time was to drink. I poisoned myself with alcohol for years but I've never been into drugs in the way it was sometimes made out.
I've thought of doing many things in my life, under the influence of life, and I've never actually thought of straddling two carriages while they're moving.
I Still Approach A Scene As One Would Approach A Guitar Solo. You Don't Exactly Know How You're Going To Phrase This Or That. Which I Think Is Beautiful. That Idea Of Chance.
That pipe, just so happens to lead to the room where I make the most delicious flavored chocolate covered fudge." Then he will be made into strawberry flavoered chocolate covered fudge, they'll be selling him by the pound, all over the world!" No, I wouldn't allow it. The taste would be terrible. Can you imagine Augustus flavored chocolate covered gloop? Ew. No one would buy it.
Thank God I never hooked on anything. I never had a monkey on my back. I just wanted to self-medicate, to numb myself through liquor. It's how I dealt with life, reality, stress, change, sadness, memories. The list goes on. I was really trying to feel nothing.
I was definitely never a crowd pleaser.
In terms of playing like a straight leading man type thing, I feel like all these guys are kind of not necessarily leading men but straight kind of characters. Even though they may seem bizarre or strange, I feel like I think everybody's nuts. I mean, I really do. And the weirdest thing in the world is to see some guy who is just super earnest.
Smooth sailing is what I hope for. No, I'm okay with no big ups, no big downs, it's all right. Just go full steam ahead, all things well and good, yeah. I mean as a family man, all you want is, as a dad, pure happiness for your kids, that's a universal parent thing. Yeah, that's it, that's my dream, happy kids.
You always miss them [characters you've played] once you've walked away, but part of them always stays with you too.
I'd get very nervous and uncomfortable in social situations and the only way I could feel at all normal was, well, to drink my guts out.
