Adrien Brody

“In my work as an actor, I have been given even greater insights and have been guided towards empathy and a consciousness of those who are less fortunate.”

“It would be terribly boring to be earnest.”

“What guides me is to do work that's more avant-garde - things that I think are special. You can easily become a celebrity and get caught up in all that blur. I just want to work and surprise myself.”

“War is chaotic and when you start having a larger scale film and you have a lot of safety protocols and choreography, I would imagine it becomes more difficult.”

“I grew up in Queens in N.Y., and in parts of my neighbourhood, there were a lot of Italian Americans and a lot of people who were either affiliated with nefarious people or had seen so many movies that they were embodying that.”

“I was depressed for a year after 'The Pianist,' and I don't suffer from that, generally. It wasn't just a depression; it was a mourning.”

“Maybe I'm a bit superstitious, but I don't like to talk about anything until I've done it.”

“It's interesting, winning an Academy Award as a young man... life-changing, but I'm just me within that. It's been very helpful for my career, but I'm trying to stay on the path I was on before.”

“I grew up around New York, graffiti culture.”

“Some roles require less, and some roles require a great deal of commitment.”

“It's great when people appreciate your work, but I don't know how seriously to take it. The amazing thing is that I found something so early that I can support myself doing, and that can even be extremely lucrative, but I love it either way.”

“You go to a theater, you're in a darkened room, and you watch someone that you don't really know how many children they have or what their father's nickname might be; you don't have references and databases and rumors and half-truths - you're just transported by their storytelling.”

“I think there's a lot of catastrophe in this world and a lot of cruelty and a lot of carelessness.”

“I've been painting and drawing fish since I was very young. My mom found old pictures I did when I was around 6 or 7 of all these sharks and scuba diver looking back, a big ship, throwing a harpoon. There was already a message within what I saw.”

“My work as an actor is limited by the voice of the director and the writing.”

“I was a wild, mischievous kid, and I had tremendous imagination. Any experience I had, I'd try to reenact it.”

“The only reason to do a television series is to make it successful. And if it is successful, that's a six or seven year commitment.”