Hollywood didn't know if I was an actor or a nut or if I was this crazy character I was playing. I had developed an image of being a little bit unusual, different and wild.

I wanted to make an image for myself as an outlaw type. A kind of rock 'n' roll sensibility.

Passion is very important to me. If you stop enjoying things, you've got to look at it, because it can lead to all kinds of depressing scenarios.

To be a good actor you have to be something like a criminal, to be willing to break the rules to strive for something new.

I think I jump around more when I'm alone.

Shock is still fun. I won't ever shut the door on it.

My father was always getting excited about something. It's genetically inside me somewhere.

I am not a demon. I am a lizard, a shark, a heat-seeking panther. I want to be Bob Denver on acid playing the accordion.

Hollywood didn't know if I was an actor or a nut or if I was this crazy character I was playing. I had developed an image of being a little bit unusual, different and wild.

I try to do as many stunts as they'll let me do. I think it's important for an audience to feel that the actor's really doing it.

I'm sad about this, but we shouldn't have been married in the first place.

There's a fine line between the Method actor and the schizophrenic.

I was always shocked when I went to the doctor's office and they did my X-ray and didn't find that I had eight more ribs than I should have or that my blood was the color green.

It's a family that's loaded with grudges and passion. We come from a long line of robbers and highwaymen in Italy, you know. Killers, even.

As a teenager I was more of an anarchist, but now I want people to thrive and be harmonious.

'Knowing' is one of those movies where you're going to get the spectacle, and you're going to have the entertainment in the grand science fiction tradition. But also, it will perhaps stimulate some discussion to help you sort out on your own where you might choose to go in terms of your own needs. Now, I say that without preaching.

Acting is always at the core of my life, but I'm also excited about producing. I'm excited about directing, and I have a life in the filmmaking world, and so I want to explore all aspects of it, not just the acting, but acting is the root.

Acting is like any other art form, in that you have the option to go very big or go very small.

Actors have an opportunity to use storytelling as a way to solve pain.

Actors, their greatest tool, their greatest resource is imagination. You can take things, power objects, you can recruit your dreams, you can access your memories and get there. So the idea is not to act but to just be.

All of my characters have a glint of madness.

And what I like about it is it makes me happy and I think it makes a lot of people happy to go to the movies and to not think about the problems of the day or the problems of tomorrow or the yesterday and just go on for the ride and have the fun of losing oneself in a fantasy.

As I got older, with my work, I became aware of the responsibility of film, and I feel one of the best ways I can apply myself as an actor, is to go beyond movie stardom and celebrity.

As a child, these colourful superheroes that could fly, or were horrifying like Ghost Rider and the Hulk, with this tremendous rage or these supernatural powers, provided an escape for me from my mundane existence, from my lack of friends or my inability to communicate well with people. They liberated me.

At a young age, I was interested in comic books, which was really how I learnt to read. The name Cage came from a comic book character called Power Man.

Celebrity is a word I take great umbrage with. I'm actively anti-celebrity.

Children, to me, are of the utmost importance. They're really the future, aren't they?

Disney has a great tradition of enchanting children and giving them something to behold.

Every great story seems to begin with a snake.

Everything we do impacts someone else's life.

Film acting is one of the only industries where you're criticized for working hard. In any other industry, it's considered a quality and something to behold.

Film has lost something in the translation to high tech. It's become so super-real. It's with digital this and stereo that, and everything's like a CD.

For me, acting was a way of taking destructive energy and doing something productive with it, and in that way it was quite a life saver.

God bless my father, but he always spoke in this continental, literary accent, probably because he was a professor of comparative literature and he made the decision to speak with distinction.

Good science fiction is intelligent. It asks big questions that are on people's minds. It's not impossible. It has some sort of root in the abstract.

Guy Pearce is very precise and clear about understanding the rhythm and the music of a scene.

Having been a father for 19 years I realise fatherhood has changed me.

Helen Mirren is someone that I have really admired ever since I saw her in 'Excalibur.' That was the first thing I said to her. 'I loved you as Morgan Le Fay.'

Hopefully as a result of 'The Frozen Ground,' more and more people will be aware of the horrible things that happen to ladies all over the world and give them respect. This movie is a love letter to those victims.

How do you rebel in a family of rebels?

How do you rebel in a family of rebels? That's the age-old question. I guess I could have by not going into the arts, but the thing is, I couldn't do anything else.

How do you say one actor is better than another actor? You can definitely say that in the Olympics if it's the same race and someone wins the race. The only way to really do it and have it be sincere would be if you get all the actors together, and they're all playing the same part, and then you rate which one made you feel the most.

I always say to myself that if I can make a movie that makes a kid smile or gives them some hope or something to get excited about, then I'm applying myself in the best way that I can. I don't think that just goes for kids. I think that it goes for adults, as well, and for families.

I always see America as really belonging to the Native Americans. Even though I'm American, I still feel like a visitor in my own country.

I believe that there's a way to question authority with manners, with dignity. There's no reason to be rude about it.

I bought a Yamaha-1 and I was doing 180 miles per hour home on the 405 and that's really, really crazy but I did it.

I came out of independent film, that's my roots.

I care about the connection with the audience. Film is such a powerful medium. Movies can change the way people think.

I definitely went through my magic phase. I think all little boys do at some point or another - they get fascinated by magic tricks.