Even if I'm playing a superhero, it has to be steeped in reality.

I don't know what's going to happen. I'm flavor of the month at the moment, but somebody else is going to roll around the corner in three months' time. I just want to keep working. I can't stop!

'Hunger' definitely changed my life, in terms of being recognized by filmmakers, since that was very much a filmmakers' film.

There's no point in swanning through and being cool as a breeze in every scene. It's not really that interesting. Even if you're a superhero.

I always approach film as a fan.

Magneto has a whole lot of complexity to him. Emotionally, he's coming from a very damaged place. I like the ambivalence of it. I want the audience leaving the theater wondering, asking the questions themselves rather than being spoon-fed like a lot of these super-villain characters.

I guess in the independent market, I'd be getting offers, but in terms of big studio films, I still have to audition. I don't think my name is that well-known, I don't have much of a following to guarantee box office success yet.

What I find really interesting is to try and mix it up, to push myself and try different things. I don't want to stay in my comfort zone. I want to take risks and keep myself scared.

Everything I put my name to and take part in, I want to be good. That's not saying it will always happen. But I want to make bold choices.

Even if I'm playing a superhero, it has to be steeped in reality.

You know, it's amazing. I don't even have a car, would you believe it? I had a motorbike and it got stolen last year. So I've got to buy another one of those, I suppose. I can treat myself to that.

You use words like 'introvert' and 'extrovert,' various traits of a personality. A lot of that stuff, we used in drama school, and that was kind of interesting, to realize my teachers sort of ripped off a lot of Jung. And how much of it is part of our society now, these phrases, introvert and extrovert, where it actually came from.

I came to Los Angeles and did auditions for television. I made a terrible mess of most of them and I was quite intimidated. I felt very embarrassed and went back to London. I got British television jobs intermittently between the ages of 23 and 27, but it was very patchy.

I don't think peroxide-blond hair is a beneficial look for me.

I just went off for two months traveling around Europe on a motorcycle and pretty much turned my phone off. I did 5,000 miles with my dad. We went through Holland, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Italy... and then I did Spain and France by myself.

I keep everything very simple. I like telling stories.

I'm always interested in trying to investigate different personalities. I want to keep myself guessing and keep the fear element alive, so that I don't get too comfortable.

I'm fairly competitive.

I've always been more inclined to go out to work than carry on with academic studies.

It's more interesting isn't it, if I've got a hedonistic dark side?

My goal was for acting to become my main income. I would say to myself, 'I'm good enough.' That became my mantra.

Nobody wants to hear Metallica at lunchtime.

People are complicated. Our behavior towards one another is strange. So I like opportunities to investigate that.

Scratch the surface of what's socially normal. I suppose in some way all of us have something we display to the public and things we feel too ashamed of or uncomfortable with to reveal to other people.

The arts are very alive in Ireland, so that had its influence on me. But I consider myself European, really.

When I was four, I just wanted to drive, I collected toy cars. Where does that sort of thing come from? In hindsight you go, 'Oh, liked it because of this.' Maybe it's just the wheel.

Why not provoke some thought and get people talking about things? I like characters that are flawed because we all are. When people break up in a script, you think, Oh, right, there must be tears shed here. But maybe the fact of the matter is that they're both laughing.

Why does a three-year-old, and it's usually boys, want to drive the tractor or have machinery and be in control of it? I don't know. Why wouldn't you ask to boil a kettle or something? Maybe you would, I dunno.

I try to ground most of my characters in reality somehow. That's kind of what I bring to the table.

Generally students are the best vehicles for passing on ideas, for their thoughts are plastic and can be molded and they can adjust the ideas of old men to the shape of reality as they find it in villages and hills of China or in ghettos and suburbs of America.

Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.

We must admit with humility that, while number is purely a product of our minds, space has a reality outside our minds, so that we cannot completely prescribe its properties a priori.

Sometimes you get caught up in what's going on around you. The reality is that you are just a regular person. At some point, the career will be over, the bright lights turn off. That can come back to haunt you if you're not just a regular guy.

It's about the power of design and the power of the human spirit. It's above paying anybody to do something stupid for money like reality television does - like ambushing people.

I mean, the reality is unemployment today - over 14 million Americans are unemployed. That's exactly what it was a year ago. I mean, this - the American people know we can't borrow and spend and bail our way back to a growing economy.

There is only one admirable form of the imagination: the imagination that is so intense that it creates a new reality, that it makes things happen.

And then, I suppose, there's also a cinematic reality on top of that. Because it was extremely difficult to keep tabs on, it was quite confusing acting that.

In reality, the most important things happen when you don't look for them.

What I would have liked to do on that show was play a secretary of state who has huge personal business interests throughout the world. That, to me, seems to be more in synch with reality.

From a reality perspective, I'm sure part of that is true, but this is the largest blackout in U.S. history. If that is not a signal that we have got a problem that needs to be fixed, I don't know what is.

It's one of the things that looks good written down, but the reality is that you think about the pieces you're doing and try to bear in mind everyone in the audience.

I found a religion that blended scientific reason with spiritual reality in a unifying faith far removed from the headlines of violence, destruction and terrorism.

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.

In reality, for me every role is completely different.

Some theists in evolutionary science acquiesce to these tacit rules and retain a personal faith while accepting a thoroughly naturalistic picture of physical reality.

Religion, you know, enters very deep; in reality it is the deepest impression I have in speaking to people, that they are or that they are not of my religion.

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

You can close your eyes to reality but not to memories.

Sometimes I read a script and it's obvious from early on that it's one where the suspension of disbelief has to develop strongly from page one. Some are more reality-based.