Hugh Jackman credited as playing...
Robert Angier
- Nikola Tesla: Mr. Angier, have you considered the cost of such a machine?
- Robert Angier: Price is not an object.
- Nikola Tesla: Perhaps not, but have you considered the *cost*?
- Robert Angier: I'm not sure I follow.
- Nikola Tesla: Go home. Forget this thing. I can recognize an obsession, no good will come of it.
- Robert Angier: Why, haven't good come of your obsessions?
- Nikola Tesla: Well, at first. But I followed them too long. I'm their slave... and one day they'll choose to destroy me.
- Robert Angier: If you understand an obsession, then you know you won't change my mind.
- Alfred Borden: You went half way around the world, you spent a fortune, you did terrible things - really terrible things, Robert, and all for nothing.
- Robert Angier: For nothing?
- Alfred Borden: Yeah
- Robert Angier: You never understood why we did this. The audience knows the truth: the world is simple. It's miserable, solid all the way through. But if you could fool them, even for a second, then you can make them wonder, and then you... then you got to see something really special. You really don't know? It was... it was the look on their faces...
- Cutter: Take a minute to consider your achievement. I once told you about a sailor who drowned.
- Robert Angier: Yes, he said it was like going home.
- Cutter: I lied. He said it was agony.
- [Borden shoots Angier in the waist, picking up the red rubber ball, when the two reveal their prestige to one another]
- Robert Angier: A brother... a twin. You were Fallon... the whole time?
- Alfred Borden: No. We were both Fallon. And we were both Borden.
- Robert Angier: [panting] Were you - were you the one who went into the box or the one who came back out?
- Alfred Borden: We took turns. The trick is where we would swap.
- [we see the flashback of both twins performing The Transported Man]
- Robert Angier: [breathing heavily] Cutter knew. Cutter knew. But I told him it was too simple, too easy.
- Alfred Borden: No... simple, maybe, but not easy. There's nothing easy about two men sharing one life.
- [we see the flashback showing one of the twins cutting the other twins' fingers off]
- Robert Angier: Wh-What about Olivia? And your wife?
- Alfred Borden: We each loved one of them.
- [we see the flashback of both lovers]
- Alfred Borden: I loved Sarah. He loved Olivia. We each had half a full life, really, which was enough for us. Just... but not for them. You see, sacrifice, Robert - that's the price of a good trick. But you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?
- Robert Angier: [labored breathing] I've - I've made sacrifices.
- [wheezing]
- Robert Angier: Yes.
- Alfred Borden: It takes nothing to steal another man's work.
- Robert Angier: It takes everything.
- [we see the flashback of Angier killing the clone of himself while doing The Real Transported Man trick]
- Robert Angier: It took courage... it took courage to climb into that machine every night... not knowing... if I'd be the man in the box... or the prestige. Do you want - want to see. What it cost me? Y-you didn't see where you are, did you? Look. Look
- Alfred Borden: Look here... you went halfway around the world. You spent a fortune. You did terrible things... really terrible things, Robert. And all for nothing.
- Robert Angier: For nothing?
- Alfred Borden: Yeah.
- Robert Angier: You never understood... why we did this? The audience knows the truth - the world is simple... and miserable... solid all the way through. But if you could fool them, even for a second, then you can make them wonder. And then you... then you got to see something very special. You really don't know? It was... it was the look on their faces.
- [Angier wheezes and exhales, collapsing dead, and Borden walks out of the theatre alone]
- Robert Angier: But here, at the turn, I must leave you Borden. Yes, you, Borden, sitting there in your cell, awaiting your death. For my murder.
- Robert Angier: He's a dreadful magician.
- Cutter: No, he's a wonderful magician. He's a dreadful showman.
- Alfred Borden: [realizes Fallon's buried after trading him back] Alive?
- Robert Angier: How fast can you dig?
- Robert Angier: [to Borden] You always were the better magician. We both know that. Whatever your secret was, you have to agree, mine is better.
- Alfred Borden: He's progressive, he's predictable, he's boring. I mean, Milton's got success, whatever that means, and now he's scared, he won't take any risks at all. I mean, he's squandering the goodwill of the audience with these tired, second-rate tricks...
- Robert Angier: They're all favorites, please...
- Alfred Borden: Favorites? Come on, give me something fresh, he wont even try a bloody bullet catch!
- Cutter: A bullet catch is suicide, all it takes is some smart-ass volunteer to put a button in the barrel...
- Alfred Borden: Fine, use a plant!
- Robert Angier: You can't use plants for every trick!
- Julia McCullough: There'll be no seats left for the punters!
- [laughs]
- Alfred Borden: Fine, no bullet catch, whatever, but the point is... a real magician tries to invent something new, that other magicians are gonna scratch their heads over, you know?
- Cutter: Right, then you sell it to him for a small fortune?
- Alfred Borden: All right...
- Cutter: I suppose you have such a trick?
- Alfred Borden: Actually, I do.
- Gerald Root: Did you think you were unique, Mr Angier? I've been Caesar. I've played Faust. How hard could it possibly be to play the Great Danton?
- [after finding Gerald Root, Angier's new double]
- Cutter: He's perfect. He needs some work, but when I get through with him, he could be your brother.
- Robert Angier: I don't need him to be my brother, I need him to be *me*!
- Robert Angier: I thought you said I'd have to get my hands dirty.
- Cutter: Maybe someday you will; I just needed to know that you could.
- Robert Angier: What knot did you tie?
- Alfred Borden: I don't know.
- Robert Angier: You don't know?
- [Alfred walks off]
- Robert Angier: You don't *know*?