To me, Hollywood seems a little bipolar. Things happen; things don’t happen. Someone’s in a movie; someone’s not in a movie. I’ve learned not to build my expectations.
Unfortunately, the Egyptians weren’t the greatest artists in the world.
I wasted too much time in my twenties. I worked, but I would do theater in the evening, and during the day I would surf and do irascible things. And then, for some reason, as I got closer to my thirties, I thought, ‘Okay Joel, you’ve wasted enough time.’
I love so much what I do that I spend so much time thinking about it, and then I go home, and then I’m thinking about it, so it’s nice sometimes when a movie is over, and then the niggling feelings about whether you’ve did it right or not start to ebb away.
Sometimes I just wonder if I’m being led by variety. If one film leads me down one path, sometimes I just want to turn around and head the opposite way for the next project. I hope that’s not the case, but sometimes I suspect that.
I’m single, footloose and fancy free, I have no responsibilities, no anchors. Work, friendship and self-improvement, that’s me.
I thought I’d be married and a father by 35.
I wanted to make a movie that was kind of a tribute to the way I feel when I watch a John Hughes movie.
I worked for a big department store, and strangely, on my first day, they put me in charge of Christmas wrapping. I didn’t know how to wrap a present and make it not look like it fell off a truck.
Having rain on your tuxedo is a pretty good reminder that you’re not James Bond.
Sometimes Hollywood manages to knock a movie in its teeth so hard that it never manages to get back up.
I never sing out loud because I’m afraid people will go, ‘Shut up!’
I don’t want at the end of my life to look back at just a bunch of fictional movies I was involved in that kept taking me away from the real world.
I think it’s great to be able to go and watch a short film before you watch a feature.
I’m the great-great-grandson of a sheep stealer.
One of the things I’ve always enjoyed is moving around and staying fit. Physicality is such a big part of being an actor, but it’s also about stillness and silence.
‘Animal Kingdom’ feels like a suburban Melbourne version of ‘The Godfather ‘to me. It’s epic and Shakespearean in its story, and yet you still feel like you can reach out and touch it.
The tricky thing becomes: Do you know yourself well enough to then portray that on screen? And for me, I find that really hard. I’d rather hide behind accents and funny walks.
When you’re constantly involved in domination, what you’re really looking for is constant highs.
I always kind of aim with the action stuff to make it feel like, as an audience member, you’re experiencing what the people are experiencing. As soon as you go into slow-mo or repeated edits, shooting it like it’s a stunt, it takes it out of that reality. The more real you make that stuff, the more tense it will be.
The narrator of a documentary often comes in at the last minute and takes some of the glory they don’t deserve.
I just love good movies. And not every movie you’re going to end up in is always going to turn out right, but at least walk into it with the right intention.
The sum total of all my stop-starts have made me less concerned about the future. I’m just aware now that I’ll always land on my feet somehow.
I don’t want to be too power-hungry.
I don’t call acting a real job, and writing is a hobby.
Gene Hackman was a superstar in the ’70s – with that face!
As an actor, I’m constantly striving to find the darkness in the lighter characters and the lightness in the darker characters.
There’s the pressure of being a No. 1 on the call sheet, being a lead actor. There’s almost this feeling like being captain of the team. You want to put a bit of energy into actually setting a good example.
I spent a lot of time outdoors as a kid.
I think the life of an actor is glamorous to other people, but then the reality sets in: you don’t know where you will be next year or how long you’ll be there for.
I was raised Catholic, and I remember in all the pamphlets and pictures we’d look at, Jesus was basically blonde with blue eyes. He kind of looked like Jared Leto.
It’s easier to play aggression and malevolence onscreen, often, than to hit softer notes.
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