Quotes

[on Bullhead (2011)] We all get damned in our lives, and there are ripple effects. One thing can determine a life, and it's hard to overcome that if the event is really traumatic. Your life is completely condemned by it.

[on being a Hollywood man of the moment, with a string of movies on the docket - The New York Times, 2013] It's been exciting, but at some point it drives me nuts. I haven't been here [in Antwerp] a lot this year. Next year I want to do two projects and not more. Four or five a year starts feeling like a grab-the-money-and-run show.

[re family history] It's complicated. But when I was playing soccer, everything was fine.

I boxed a little when I was a teenager in Belgium, but I was pretty bad. I got punched a lot. For Rust and Bone (2012), I hit the boxing gym for five months on a daily basis. I just wanted to be believable. Yes, I did break my nose-but that's from something else. A friend kicked me in the face when we were teenagers. Twenty years later, I'm making a documentary about him-which proves that friendship can last forever.

[on being considered for the lead role in RoboCop (2014)] They [Belgian magazine Focus Knack] blew it out of proportion. In the sense that, they were interested, but to me, it didn't feel like the right thing to do at that specific time. I thought it was too big, I thought I needed something else, to get more confidence, and not jump into this huge budget thing. But yes, they blew it out of proportion, I wasn't really happy with that. It feels disrespectful to José Padilha, who's a great director.

I like to play underdogs and antiheroes. I don't like to play classical heroes.

[on Jacques Audiard] I don't know if he's crazy. Maybe all the other ones are crazy for not being like him. He wants to film truth, he doesn't want to film acting. Acting for him isn't about tricks and vanity; it's about being simple and authentic and sincere. He's the first true actor's director I've ever worked with.

[on the first time he saw Marion Cotillard on the set of Rust and Bone (2012)] I saw Marion before the rehearsal, she was in a wheelchair, she looked totally depressed and I thought ... 'It's not going to work out very well with Marion' and I thought 'What do I do? Should I talk to her?' It wasn't until we started rehearsing that I realized she was totally in Stéphanie's world already. She'd actually become Stéphanie. It made me really scared. She is an exceptional actress and she does everything to her utmost ability. Jacques Audiard is always highly demanding, very sensitive, highly intelligent and he enables us to expand and develop and move into areas that we might never have thought of, so I was very very happy to be in this film with Marion, to work with Jacques, it was overwhelming. It was a tremendous gift.

[on choosing screen projects] It's a combination of elements. Of course it starts with the screenplay and part of the creative team around it. It's an energy thing. If someone were to ask me to picture myself spending two weeks on a deserted island with this person, if the answer is 'yes' then I'm going to go. If we run out of conversation in thirty minutes, then why the fuck would you make a film with that person?

I hate it when people try to make you look like a pretty boy, I really don't like that. I always try to make myself look like shit when I do a role.

[on speaking three languages] It's part of our education [in Belgium]. And then, later on, I don't know. When we see American films, for instance, we have subtitles. We don't dub them, so you grow up with all these American films. So I probably picked up a lot from that as well.

I'm attracted to people with flaws. I like people that are imperfect-the anti-heroes. I don't believe in heroes. I think people can do heroic stuff, but I don't think people are heroes. I like ambiguous characters that you can hate at the same time, mostly for the same reason you like them.

I like good cinema, whether it's small independent cinema or a huge project. For me it's all about, is it going to blow people's minds, in a creative way, in an emotional way. That's the experience we're sharing with an audience when we go to a movie theater.

I don't want to be pinned down as just a physical actor. I understand that people may think I am, since Bullhead (2011) and Rust and Bone (2012) popped up one year after another, but that's a coincidence. I've done a lot of different stuff.

I think language, for me, it frees me as an actor. I don't know, playing in another language gives me a lot of energy. It's freeing. It's liberating. And it offers you the opportunity to work in France and in the States as well so that's exciting because I think language, that's a sad thing. The National Academy of Dramatic Arts, we don't even learn French or English and that's the only thing I think we're missing in our dramatic education.

[on Gabriel Oak] I was fascinated by the absolute selflessness and sincerity and loyalty of that guy.

[on Graffiti] I've been doing it ever since I was 13, 14. As a kid, I had a lot of books about painters; I was totally absorbed and obsessed. It has a meditative effect on me because it doesn't involve so many people.

I'm also an animal. I can also be a beast. I know about sex.

[on being directed by Alan Rickman in A Little Chaos (2014)] He is one of a kind actor and beautiful person. It's the first time I have been directed by an actor and that's quite something. You're being directed by an actor you appreciate and you know you will listen. I will listen and I will believe you and you have to be your own, and find it. He's the sweetest man.

[on Marion Cotillard] She's not an angel, actually, she's a Goddess. She's an extremely devoted, passionate actress, true artist. I had a tremendous experience working with her, she's very generous and talented.

[on the healing power of art - 2015 Venice Film Festival] I think, without sounding too knowledgeable, that beauty can save us and art is a search for beauty on many levels.

Love is that indestructible conviction where in the end, love can conquer everything. And it's really, really, really true.

[on the Shakespearean role that he would like to play - Irish Independent, November 2012] I guess Hamlet probably. I fell in love ever since the first time I read Hamlet, which is almost 20 years ago. I don't know if it's the most challenging, but it's just a very touching and interesting part.

I watched endless films as a child - everything you could think of, from Ken Loach to David Lynch - but I never saw a career in acting coming. At a certain point people started telling me to go to America but I was never interested in hanging out in Hollywood. I never chased anything. Everything came naturally.

[he dismisses any notion of being typecast as a brooding, muscle-bound anti-hero] It's a matter of making good choices with the roles you pick. Of course, every once in a while some-thing comes my way that requires a certain physicality, but most of the time the parts are pretty diverse. I'm happy that people don't just think of me as some big, physical guy. They know I can act, too.

I've been loving film ever since I was a teenager, so I was always interested in film or storytelling or the cinematography or the acting. All of the aspects that are part of movie-making interested me. It always spoke to me. There's so many ways to transcend energy through cinema.

[on if he's prepared to overtake Jean-Claude Van Damme as Belgium's most famous actor] I've never understood the fame aspect of it all. I want to enjoy what I do and that's all. And c'mon, you can't get bigger than Jean-Claude Van Damme.

[on the actors or directors that he'd like to work with - Indiewiere, April 2015] I don't remember the director [Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris], but I loved, for example, "Little Miss Sunshine." I loved "Nebraska" by Alexander Payne. Beautiful film. At the same time, I'd love to work with Will Ferrell. Just to be on set and watch him, and lie on the floor and crack up all the time. So yeah, I'm open. I did a comedy ["De President"], like, four years ago. I played a sidekick with a friend of mine. We played two sidekicks. Bulgarian gypsy types. That was fun. But I must say that I tend towards... the comedy should be really good, because otherwise I get bored after two days. I like to act a fool, but after two days I'm like, "Okay, I'm done with this. Now give me the meaty stuff.

[The Sunday Times, UK - April 2015] It's important for me to have my people around. And there are not so many - it's not like I have a billion friends. If you have a billion friends, you need to ask yourself some questions, because something is definitely wrong.

True love is considering the person we love, considering what that person needs and how you can contribute to that. It's not about, "How can I get that person to do what I want?" That's not love. That's egotistical nonsense.

[on if he could be anything in the world other than what he is, what would it be? - Interview magazine, May 2015] I think an architect. I don't know why, exactly. I don't have the mathematical structure for that, but I love architecture.

[The Sunday Times, UK - April 2015] My biggest ambition is to live fully. I really, really wanna get to the depth of life, in the purest sense of the word.

[InStyle, December 2015] I see no reason to live in Los Angeles, except for the weather. In Antwerp I live five minutes away from the house I grew up in. I'm still close with my friends, so being in this city gives me a place to rest, rejuvenate, and load up my batteries. I play a lot of sports here, like soccer and boxing. I paint. I read mostly philosophical works and sociological studies on modern-day societies.

[InStyle, December 2015] Reading makes me think more about how humankind is portrayed on film. I have a casting company called Hakuna that I acquired this August. Its focus is casting people of color. I hardly ever see people from different backgrounds onscreen. Flanders is actually more diverse than New York City. Yet so few of those people even dream of an acting career because it seems to impossible to imagine. That's what we're trying to change.

I think the baddies are more interesting than the heroes. Why does everyone talk about the villains in Batman? It's because they are more fun to play, and you can see that onscreen. It's not just that I want to be an antagonist. It's that I look for stories that are ambiguous in nature and for characters who are complicated. People use the characters they see on TV and in movies to test their own values. So, as an artist, I wonder, What can I do to make the audience think differently about what good is, what bad is, who a man is, and who a woman is.

Yes, I am a romantic, but not in the way of candlelit dinners. It's more that I treat things in a sensitive way. I believe loyalty is the nicest gift you can give anyone. It's worth more than a poem, a song or any other type of art.

[on playing tough characters] In appearance they might seem tough, but to me it's a fractured being. I like it when people label these people 'tough guys', because what I try to create or translate to the screen is the opposite. I like to break down that perception, so by the end of the film, those who have a notion or a judgment really care for the character, and see the soul instead of the package that they used to label.

[De Morgen, February 2016] I'm not insensitive to female beauty. But I don't have to explain that certain beauties have the effect of a sleeping pill after 10 minutes. Because, of course, I meet people, who try to make me understand hysterically that I need them. People who like to stick to me. I can rather quickly distinguish the vampire from the butterflies. And furthermore I am better alone that badly accompanied.

[on his ideal woman] I need someone with a real passion for life; a person who's on a quest for truthfulness. I find that incredibly attractive. They also need to be pretty independent, like a cat. If I could be any animal, I'd be a cat. They don't rely on anyone. In a relationship you have to trust each other - becoming dependent on one another isn't healthy. Also, cats don't 'have' to do anything - how great is that?

[on the person who helped his self-acceptance] My mother. She was always there for me, especially at the times I needed her most. She showed me how important I was to her and gave me those important feelings of self-worth. It's so important to love yourself. Life is a roller coaster and it's easy to lose your balance.