Quotes

I had a Catholic girlfriend but she wouldn't, uh, share loving.

After River's death, I felt like I was in an altered state. It took me over a year to get my life back.

I don't have the slightest desire to speak about my dead brother. It gets on my nerves to always be compared with him. My brother was a magnificent person and an outstanding actor.

[on living without older brother River] River and I would talk about being old, being in our 50s together, how it'd probably take us that long to get to work together. There was something gorgeous about us being old together. River will be missed - period. I mean now, more than ever I wish I could talk to him.

My significant other right now is myself, which is what happens when you suffer from multiple personality disorder and self-obsession.

[on relationship with Liv Tyler] What can I say? We hit it off immediately. She's a darling. I've said it over and over again. She's just very real, right there, never like a movie star. She's so genuine, and she doesn't take herself too seriously. It shows in the work she does that her honesty stands out most.

[on relationship with Liv Tyler I'm a great believer in people coming into your life, and you into theirs, for a reason. And I know that when Liv and I met, it was for a reason - I really needed her and she really needed me. And at a certain point, I think we stopped evolving with each other, stopped progressing, and made a very mature decision to move on, even though there was still a great love there. There's no one gossipy thing that I can share. I'm thankful that we had the time we had.

[on relationship with Liv Tyler] I was in awe. Every once in a while you find an actor that, with one word, can sum up eight different emotions. She absolutely nailed that.

I'm not the indie kid, and I'm also not the John Grisham novel hero, but I am all of those things. I do whatever excites me at the time. I'll be in some huge $80 million buddy cop movie, I don't care, and I'll also do some wild independent movie. I refuse to have an agenda.

I don't know why I always get to play these guys who have few redeeming features. But don't knock it. Villains are much more fun.

As I'm reading a script, I start to see the character. I always seem to do something to my hair. A lot of stuff I do for a part, people don't even notice, but I notice, and it makes the character whole for me.

The reason I keep making movies is I hate the last thing I did. I'm trying to rectify my wrongs.

I go into movies thinking, we're performing, but with interviews, we're pretending to be completely real. I just can't get my head around it. And the things we say in this hour could permanently shape our personas. I mean, tell me that's not a little odd! And because I think that's odd, people think I'm odd. And that's strange. Know what I'm saying?

I enjoy humour more than anything, I don't really sit around banging my head and crying all the time.

I changed my name because no one in the States could pronounce 'Joaquin' and I used to get really embarrassed about it as a kid. All the other kids in my family had gorgeous names and I got 'Joaquin', you know what I mean? So I said "This is not good. Even I can't say it.".

It's been a year since last time I tried to give up smoking. I went to a hypnotist; we sat down and started talking. A couple of hours later, I woke up; the hypnotist wasn't in the room, but his wife was. I was like "Oh my goodness, I fell asleep and didn't get to talk to the doctor." And she said "Don't worry, you talked..." I freaked out, left their place, immediately bought a pack of cigarettes and smoked, terrified of what I'd said.

That kind of fame; I couldn't have it in my life. I love that we can sit on the lawn in Central Park and I'm just one of the millions. I don't want to lose that. I'm trying to figure out the perfect strategy. And it's tough. I just want to be right in the middle.

I had a really wonderful upbringing. We were a tight family. It was wonderful to grow up with so many siblings. We were all just a year or two apart, and we were always so supportive of each other. I learned everything from my older brother and sister and taught it to my younger sisters.

I never think that I'm good at anything I do. I can always do it better, I know my weakness. I've never been perfect.

[on maintaining a lower profile than some of his other Hollywood peers] The less someone knows about me, the better, because my intention is to play a variety of characters.

[on falling into acting] I suck at painting and writing; I tried both. For me, it's acting because I grew up with it. When we moved to California, we all did commercials and television shows. Riv was the first to get a television show and me and my sister Liberty guest-starred on another show. It was kind of accidental.

[on his childhood and his live on the land with his family] I remember us being poor, but I never felt embarrassed, or like I was missing anything. I don't remember the hardship of trying to make it, just how my parents always managed to get through.

If you can come in, say your lines brilliantly, and be thinking "What's for lunch?". The whole time you're doing it and it works for the audience, who cares?

Making movies is a constant manipulation. You manipulate the environment. You make it rain when you want it to. You manipulate actors. And as an actor, you try and manipulate your feelings to match what you think you'd be going through in a situation where your character is going through something.

I don't know Shakespeare! I'm not a serious actor. Directors always make references, and I go: "Ah, I'll check it out," and I never, ever do. I'm incredibly lazy.

I'm going to sound a little weird here, but I like to spend a lot of time on my own in the woods. I don't exactly sneak off in the middle of the night, but I like to be in a place where no one can reach me by phone or e-mail.

[on acting being his biggest challenge] Acting. I'm one of those actors who likes to stay in character between takes. I drive other actors crazy but, to me, the most important thing when I'm making a film is that the character takes precedence. I become obsessed with whoever I'm playing. I want to explore the character as completely as I can. The moment an actor becomes satisfied with themselves, their work suffers. I think that we should always challenge ourselves in work.

I live a really boring life. I'm much more clichéd, pathetic and pretentious than you would probably give me credit for. I don't want to do much of anything when I'm not working. It's important that any woman I know shouldn't need to be stimulated outside the house, because I can't provide that. (2007)

It's a bad idea for actors to grow accustomed to seeing themselves on camera, because inevitably you start doing things and become too self-conscious. The only way to prevent it is by not being aware of yourself in that way or at least trying not to be.

First of all, I really think that the greatest fear for actors, is reaching the point in which they go, "God, I'm good at this", because I think the work will really suffer. It's not a conscious effort, it's just I always hope I can do justice to the films and characters. I feel that I've been choosy in my roles as much as I can be, and I only work on films that I really want to make.

[2007, on being a vegetarian] I don't try to impose my views on anyone else, and I can simply say I feel it's right for me. Of course, I've had slips. When I was about 12 I stayed with a friend in San Diego. They got pizza, and I was like, "I'm having some motherfucking pizza. I ate two slices and vomited for two days. I'm strange in that I crave salad and vegetables. I've never really had a sweet tooth, and I don't particularly like foods that are too rich. I'm a parent's dream.

[2007, on if he believes in life after death] Fuck no. There's just nothing. We're gone. If I do have a soul, I don't think it's interpreting life, feelings or experience. My brain is what's making sense of experience and feelings for me. So when that fucker's cut off, how can I possibly understand or feel anything?

[2007] Early on, there wasn't much strategy in choosing roles. I didn't get offered 400 movies; I got offered four, and I did those movies. Let's be honest: If I were six-foot-two, blond and incredibly muscular, they would have been banging down my door. Any actor who doesn't admit that is wrong. But once you've established yourself, you try to break out to the other place...The irony is that I am suddenly being offered all those things usually offered to the six-foot-two blond guy with the big chest. And I'm going, "Are you motherfuckers crazy? I'm finally fucking starting to get into some real work, and now you want me to make movies where I run around with a fucking gun, chasing dudes?" I can't understand actors who, after busting their asses for years, get nominated for an Oscar at the age of 45 and win it, and the next 10 movies they make are fucking crap.

Once I became a total buffoon, it was so liberating. Part of why I was frustrated with acting was because I took it so seriously. I want it to be so good that I get in my own way. It's like love: when you fall in love you're not yourself anymore. You lose control of being natural and showing all the beautiful parts of yourself, and all somebody recognizes is total desperation.

[on Paul Thomas Anderson, director of The Master (2012)] He called me "Bubbles"on the set. Bubbles was Michael Jackson's pet monkey, and I was Paul's pet monkey. I didn't mind I at all. I love having a master.

[on being attracted to acting] On the first job I ever did, there was a fight scene. I was eight, and though I knew it wasn't real and they were actors, I was emotionally affected by it. I felt the adrenaline race through my body. There are kids who get on a BMX bike when they're eight and they go, "Whoa, this is incredible" and grow up to do extreme sports. It's the same for me with acting.

Lynne's Lynne Ramsay always chasing something, and that's who you want to work with. Filmmakers who have a strong feeling and will pursue it to the end. And auteurs are ultimately responsible for the movie. Some movies, the producer, the studio, they're all putting in their fucking bits and, you know - fuck that movie ! [2018]

I'm Jewish... But I don't think I've ever been very religious, no, though I do consider myself a spiritual person. I appreciate a lot of traditions from various faiths. I'm on a path.

I'm inherently a blubbering slob. I'm like a shaved hamster.

We should always shake up the system, even if it's a system that we think is working. I've always loved the rebel element.

Flying is something I just can't bear. I hate the powerlessness.

[to interviewer] You're willing this not to work. My lighter worked fine until you came in. [both giggle]

Casey [Affleck] and I are still great friends. We got tattoos together. He actually has this video of me crying like a girl when I got it done. It was on the inside of my arm, which is incredibly sensitive and painful for a tattoo. And I think the guy was drunk at the time, because I wanted a circle and it doesn't even look like one. I mean, how can you screw up a circle?

I get butterflies every time. I'm vomiting days before we start shooting.

Yes [Mel Gibson was nice], but he is very intense and constantly had a lot of theories going on at the same time. I let my character in the movie [Signs] get a bit inspired by him. He conspired against me. Well I think it was Mel. There was a scene, where I had to sit in a wardrobe and watch TV, that began with being dark in the room. When we had to do the shot for the 14th time they turned the light out in the room and went for lunch. I was sitting there for 20 minutes, just waiting.

My brother River was doing the TV series Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. We hung around on the set quite a bit. It seemed like such fun what he was doing. When your older siblings do gymnastics, you want to do gymnastics. When they listen to Squeeze, you listen to Squeeze, so I wanted to act. One day I got to be in a scene with River. We were supposed to cry because someone was fighting. River started crying right away and it made me cry. It felt so real. It was a shocking revelation.

I closed my eyes [ took a hellish roller-coaster ride in a theme park recently]. I clutched the person next to me and just wept like a coward. My friends called me a coward, and they pushed me and taunted me, like it's a funny thing. But I said, 'Guys, that's not cool'.

[I've] never been good at these kind of interview sessions. I've been doing interviews since I was 15 and I still have no idea what to expect or how to answer most of the questions. It always makes me as nervous as the first time I walked into one of these interview sessions. Talking about myself is the most alien thing possible.

I don't have a lot of secrets.

Trumpet is beautiful, even just one note of it. Thing is, I bitched to my teacher about playing scales. I just wanted to learn songs. But this friend of mine said, 'Hey, just get into the sound of it,' and I was like, cured within a day.