Joel Edgerton

“Gene Hackman was a superstar in the '70s - with that face!”

“Sometimes, what's not said is just as important to the writing as what is said. As a writer, we have our voices heard. I think that, at oftentimes, the ability to allow the dialogue to recede properly into the world of the film is also a really valid sort of way to be a writer, I think.”

“When you're constantly involved in domination, what you're really looking for is constant highs.”

“A lot of the fighters will say you'll know if a fighter's won or lost just by a fighter's eyes - whether they're scared of the other person.”

“Actors want to act; actors want to emote. It's like the emotional equivalent of tearing your shirt off and screaming to the heavens: you want to express, and you want to be seen to be expressing.”

“I'm really great at making terrible analogies.”

“People talk about the difference between working on stage and working on film. I think you could say that there are as many differences between working on low budget films and working on big budget films. You really are doing the same thing, but at the same time you're doing something vastly different as well.”

“I was a good boy; I was never in trouble for anything.”

“Where does guilt and punishment lie, and are we not more expressive over remorse or guilt when other people see the badness in us?”

“I'm single, footloose and fancy free, I have no responsibilities, no anchors. Work, friendship and self-improvement, that's me.”

“What makes a really great fighter is a combination of ingredients: one is everything physical that you can do, and the other is what's mentally there for you. And I think that comes down to how big your heart is and what's driving you.”

“I did have someone tell me that I looked like Conan O'Brien. I was like, 'What?'”

“I learned a great lesson early on, even before I was really an actor, from that movie 'Planes, Trains & Automobiles' that John Hughes made: that you could make a movie that's really, really, really, really funny, and sometimes you can still achieve... making the audience feel very deep emotions as well.”

“I grew up being taught, 'Do unto others as they would do unto you.' I would get scolded for not being polite.”

“Getting the call from Ridley Scott made me think that sometimes you just need to go to work.”

“Sometimes, the smaller roles in movies can be the most interesting. If you only take the stance that you'll only play central characters in movies, you'll find yourself not being able to indulge in that morally grey terrain that makes support characters so rich and interesting.”

“In Australia, there aren't a lot of people committed to art, so these communities form that are dedicated to music, theater, cinema, but they're very small. So, they tend to move ahead on the power of collaboration, enthusiasm and creativity.”

“I have always stuck to my guns about what I want from the work and what interests me. I've never been seduced down the evil path. The path of taking the money.”

“As an actor, I'm constantly striving to find the darkness in the lighter characters and the lightness in the darker characters.”

“When I was young, I had a very clear point of view on things in life, on moral questions. There was a black and white viewpoint on my world. As I've gotten older, I see the grey areas appear.”