-
I'm enjoying [my career]. If anything I'm aware that the pressure of the first, I suppose, six or seven years I was in America - I mean that energy of having such a rapid and ascending celebrity - it's not there anymore. It's the end of that chapter and now I'm just enjoying the work probably more than I ever have and yet I'm simultaneously less attached to it I think, which is kind of a strange state of grace to be in.
-
Initially, less appealing to me than the idea of a vampire that is drawn by some misgiving or drawn by some sense of longing that he can't quite satiate.
-
I know what the important things are in life. I know that just because I pretend to be someone else for two hours on the silver screen doesn't make me a better person than the next man. So, I mind all those things. Simple things.
-
The sea always offers up incredible stories of survivors' fortitude. Myths of a lot of countries have variations on that.
-
I was well aware of that when I heard they were remaking 'Total Recall.' My first reaction was: 'Ewww, really okay?' And the director said you should really look at it, the script is good. I had already done a remake. I had just finished 'Fright Night.' When I heard about that being remade, I had a whole ego thing... remake?. 'That is so uncool! I loved the original, I can't possibly do that.
-
Pain seems to be easier, or melancholy seems to be easier to portray in a character. I don't know if that's because I'm a human being or because I'm an Irishman or both.
-
I'm not going to lie, there are more interesting ways to spend your time than answering questions about yourself. But if there were no questions to ask me, I might have a beef with that.
-
I take acting very seriously. I put everything I have and know into it.
-
Life is apogee, apex, decline; life is death - and everything else is open to discussion.
-
I just recently realized. It's very strange. But doing fight scenes with Kate [Beckinsale], I was little bit more cautious. You can go harder with a guy, which I don't mean as an insult.
-
You have a certain objectivity, as a member of the audience, and you can come away maybe being provoked into a certain discourse or a certain arena of questioning, regarding how you would deal with things that your character has to deal with. Whereas when you're doing a film, once you start asking, "What would I do?," you're getting the distance greater between yourself and the character, or you're bringing the character to you, which I think is self-serving, in the wrong way. The idea is to bring yourself to the character.
-
You move on. It's work. Yeah, I'm privileged and paid handsomely and it's not exactly being in a coal mine, but you still work your ass off and you work as hard as you possibly can and you hope that people connect to it and enjoy it.
-
I was never an A student, but I was really well behaved until I was 13 or so.
-
I called Nic Pizzolatto and he said, "No, no. You're in it the whole way through." That was fun to shoot [in The Lobster]. I had a few scenes in that show that were some of my favorite all-time scenes to be in.
-
Her Majesty's Secret Service wouldn't have me on the payroll.
-
I'm not optimistic at all, nor am I pessimistic.
-
Vampires have always held a very seductive kind of lore and have always been some variety of attractive, whether it's attractiveness that's born of just the physical attributes that they have - this kind of ethereal beauty or translucent pallor - or whether it is more to do with the way they carry themselves.
-
Magic is at the core of myths.
-
Making a film, you're in a really dark tunnel and the only kind of illumination is the shared experience you're having with your fellow cast and director.
-
I get excited about room-service menus! I really do.
-
There are so many interpretations that this film [The Lobster] could be approached from. But Yorgos [Lanthimos] is so specifically minded, he's so clinical in his direction of the film.
-
Yeah loads of bruises and welts, usually around the hip, arse, thigh region and elbows. Elbows got knocked up big time, but it was so much fun. I hadn't done a meaty action film in seven or eight years, so it was fun to explore that aspect of storytelling again.
-
Yorgos Lanthimos said, "What about if he's a bit soft?" And I said, "Yeah, I think you're right." He just comfort-eats a little bit too much. He's just asleep in his own life and has let himself go. And the mustache, I don't know if it was him or I suggested it. But I remember my sister was watching me eat and she was like, "God, does he have to be fat?" And in retrospect I couldn't think of David being any other way because it affected the way I moved. It really did. It slowed me down in a way that I felt was conducive to kind of tapping into the spirit of the character.
-
Quite often on a movie like Total Recall you have this training period of two or three months where, like on the first 'Underworld' I was doing gymnastics and trampolining and all this stuff which I don't do in the movie necessarily, but mentally it helps. You come home and you go: 'Well, I've done all that. I must be an action star now!' So it helps you focus a little bit and gets you fit.