Ben Mendelsohn Quotes
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The first 'Star Wars' film was enormously important. I grew up right smack-bang in the sweet spot of all of those. It's true cinema magic. It's fair to say that, as a kid, I would have been very happy to be Han Solo, and I would have been happy to have gone out with Princess Leia.
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I wanted to keep working because work was essentially fantastic - you got to be around people, you got to be in a family, and that family changed from job to job. It was like being in the circus.
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I don't know that it exists, the perfect family. It's always complicated.
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One of the things that I found very confronting in my early working life was that people thought I was some sensitive doe-eyed lovelorn boy, because they'd seen me do that a couple of times. What tends to happen is you get a run of similar roles.
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It's got a lot more room for nuance and an assumption that people have started from the beginning. 'Bloodline' ends up being like a really good novel.
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When you're a young boy, you're looking at older men for role modelling. Before I loved De Niro, I loved Clint Eastwood; I loved John Wayne. And James Bond.
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For mine, the villains of the piece were always important. In a traditional sense, that's always an important role.
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'Slow West' is a western, and it's sort of a twist on the genre stylistically, I think, from what I understand going in.
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The people that impress me are Bob Dylan. The ones who keep working, year in and year out, and keep coming up with stuff.
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I think it's that thing of growing up all the time watching American movies and listening to American music. It hits you in a way that's a lot purer because you are not in that culture that you're watching.
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I think now there's much more of a confessional culture. That's not my bag. I come from a slightly older school of thought: 'give 'em nothin.' You don't plead guilty.
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At any period of an actor's life, it's fairly likely that they'll be cast in ways that are reminiscent. That's the way it goes.
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$3,000 from a residual cheque was all I made one year.
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I think Kyle Chandler is something of a national treasure.
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Before 'Animal Kingdom,' I wasn't particularly thought of in villainous roles.
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I mean, there's a sense wherein you skip a part of childhood, too, when you start working at that age I did; I was out working and out of home at 15, paying my own way in the world.
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I think there's a lot of mythos about what's required in acting.
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Once upon a time, they thought I was a sweet, wide-eyed boy that was just trying to figure out how to kiss the girl. Lots of comic relief and adolescent yearnings.
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'Star Wars' is populated by so many great types; who wouldn't want to be a Han Solo kind of dude?
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I don't believe in the transformation myth, where if you have more success, life changes for you.
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I think difficult characters are very rewarding to do. They often have facets to them and this and that.
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I never felt like someone who was boyish and coming to terms with asking girls out or anything like that, which was what 'The Big Steal' and 'Spotswood' were about. But I guess that's the impression I left on people.
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The thing about acting is you have to wait to be asked to the dance.
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I got the first job and kept going. Once I got a job, I very much wanted to keep getting jobs, basically. I did try to learn what I could in those first couple of decades.