Quotes

[on his fondest memory of working with Peter Jackson while shooting the Lord of the Rings trilogy] Peter's really open to the humor in the day-to-day. One time, we were referencing a line in the book, "We counted all the slain and despoiled them, then we piled the carcasses and burned them." Of course, we went on all sorts of disgusting tangents about what else these Rohan soldiers did to the poor Orcs.

[on a Dredd (2012) sequel] It's not off the agenda. Clearly everyone has woken up to the fact that an audience has found this movie and loves it. It's entirely possible, and if people want to see another installment then they should be vocal about that, because it can happen. The power of fandom can resurrect projects. In fact, that's what happened with Star Trek (1966). They weren't going to do a third season until fans did a letter-writing campaign and they continued that series.

When I work, I try to eat as much vegetarian as possible. When I do Cupid, I eat vegetarian because I need the energy. I've got those wings on my back.

I don't believe I could work as effectively at what I do without the support of my wife.

I like the time frame involved in being an actor.

I love fishing and surfing, and I work out every day.

I never envisioned when I was reading that comic as a 17-year-old that I would have the opportunity to actually play the character.

I was a fan of the Dredd comics when I was a teenager.

I'm high-energy. Nothing beats a great smile.

Now I'm this far up the ladder and I've got so much farther to go with what I want to achieve with it.

I did a little theater work after that and the following year I got another part in a television series. Then it was almost to the end of the year before I got more work. That was coming to terms with the reality of the vocation I had chosen.

I don't see a benefit in accepting every single little morsel of work that comes along because I think, in essence, what you're doing is you're raping yourself really.

I'll need every ounce that I have to drive it through. Film and TV require that energy. Sometimes fight scenes can be pretty intense. When I was shooting Heaven (1998), it was truly guerrilla filmmaking.

If I read a script and find it engaging and I start making choices in my mind on how to approach the work, than that's a good indication that it is something worth pursuing.

It was always something I knew I was capable of and from an early age my mother was involved in the film industry. She used to work at a production company. So I was exposed to a renaissance period of films in New Zealand back in the early 80s.

It's such a small industry here, you inevitably end up working with the same people over and over again. There are only so many actors to go around, which is good for us.

My philosophy is whatever you do, you've got to invest in yourself. If you don't, there are a lot of people out there who will get the job because they're more prepared than you.

That is a big danger, losing your inspiration. When I work in film and television I try to do each take a little differently. I never want to do the same thing twice, because then you're not being spontaneous, you're just recreating something.

That's always an interesting concept when you try to make your dream into a reality and you come up against the facts of exactly what it is you're attempting to do.

There's only so much you can do until you get on set and see the aesthetics of what you're dealing with. Then you see what the other players are giving to you. It's all about the transfer of energy between different actors.

When you work so hard on making a film, it's all worthwhile when you get to experience seeing that film with an audience who thoroughly enjoy it and react to the movie.

Dredd (2012) represented a failure in marketing. I saw the tracking of that film weeks before it came out and the fundamental problem was no one knew it was being released. Once it came out on DVD and it sold 750,000 copies in the first week alone in North America alone, it was very clear that the audience had discovered it. [2016]