Emile Hirsch

I think I've always been half out of my shell and half in. Sometimes I can be extremely wild and sometimes I can be extremely shy. It just depends on the day.

When I got a lap dance, because I was 17, they had to put a massive pillow between me and the girl when she was grinding me. It was weird, yet pleasurable.

It was very, very challenging being on this thing called the gimbal. It would throw you around, give you whiplash, and they'd tie you down.

I've definitely had ideas and plans that sometimes exceed my means and capabilities.

Believe it or not, I got into the charismatic, shady, sly heart of Sedgewick Bell by watching CNN and C-SPAN.

I've realized that what you think of when you make a 'big movie,' if it's actually a green screen movie, it's like doing independent New York theater because you don't have any backgrounds or props. So it's kind of like making the lowest budgeted film you could possibly imagine, plus $100 million.

I remember when I saw 'The Matrix' when I was 13, I saw it in the theaters, and I was so blown away by it. It was one of the most memorable experiences I definitely ever had in the theater.

I'm not staying away from any genre. I'm trying to get scripts that I like.

In Dogtown, skateboards are like bikes to the Chinese.

Maybe you will be afraid and maybe you will fail, but the courage to take risks in any part of your life is, I feel, a very worthwhile way to live.

On 'Into The Wild' I spent months risking my life and on 'Speed Racer' I spent 60 days acting in front of a green screen. No danger to my physical self, but I sure had to use my imagination.

The willingness to keep learning is, I think, the most important thing about trying to be good at anything. You never want to stop learning.

Especially these days where everything is so polite and so proper, I think that rites of passage are good.

I'm not a ball in a pinball machine. I know what I want.

We want to do for 'Hamlet' what Baz Luhrmann did for 'Romeo and Juliet' in terms of like a really cool kind of re-imagining.

When you're reading Thoreau you look at Hollywood differently, let me tell ya!

I don't have an interest in any car that isn't good for the environment, other than maybe an aesthetic quality in a picture book.

I identify with someone wanting something to work out, but not being able to get through the rocks to the river.

I was so grateful to have made 'Into the Wild' before I made 'Speed Racer' because on 'Speed Racer' I was indoors every single day, every single scene, on a green screen. Some of the time, just to pass the time, I would think back to climbing mountains in Alaska. That really helped me.

I'm a very, very conservative driver.

Well, when I was a kid and I watched 'Speed Racer,' I used to always watch it in the morning with my cereal. And when I ate the cereal, I would pour soda into the cereal because we never really had milk for some reason, I don't know.

If you give an actor any wiggle room to whine in situations where they want to whine, you're gonna whine.

There's something about the good-hearted guy fighting the system. I just love that. That's how 'Speed' is. He's a really focused guy with a heart of gold and the corporations are trying to crush him and use him for his skills to make them more money.

I know what wanting and craving adventure feels like, I can really relate to that.

There's something just so kind of smooth about politicians.

I had the misfortune of getting what skateboarders call hippers. It's when you fall on your hip again and again and again, just the same spot. It turns into like a blue purple bruise and it's just torture because I had to keep on doing the same move, going around in the pool again.