Dakota Fanning is a child, but she is a wonderful actor. I don’t know what a child actor is. She’s an actor who’s a child.

You don’t know when you’re being watched. That’s one of the weird things about celebrity. It’s my least favorite part of acting, celebrity.

I wouldn’t put myself forward to do a film like ‚Changeling‘ if I thought I couldn’t pull people into a story because of all the other ways people see me.

I do admire Judi Dench and Sir Ian McKellen, but I’m a philistine. I like the good life too much; I’m not good at going on stage night after night and on wet Wednesday afternoons.

I live in Hollywood, but you can’t make me love Hollywood. I’ll never love Hollywood.

Acting is happy agony.

I’ve been really fortunate to be able to do different kinds of films in different scales, different genres, different kinds of roles, and that is important to me.

When I started out, I didn’t have any desire to be an actress or to learn how to act. I just wanted to be famous.

Meryl and Katharine Hepburn are probably the two greatest actresses of this and the last century.

I used to think as I looked out on the Hollywood night, ‚There must be thousands of girls sitting alone like me dreaming of being a movie star.‘ But I’m not going to worry about them. I’m dreaming the hardest.

In acting, you have to pull from real-life situations, from people, to help develop a character.

And of course to work with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton, and work with a wonderful, beautiful script directed by Nancy Meyers, it was really for me a dream come true.

I’ve got no need to prove to myself that I can do Shakespeare. I’ve done it.

I don’t really get into a big intellectual analysis of why I am going to do a certain script or not.

I went by myself to Hollywood, I spoke no English, every day I had to go to school.

The dominant theory coming out of Hollywood is that peoples‘ attention spans are getting shorter and shorter and they need more stimulation.

Acting helped me as I was growing up. It helped me learn about myself, helped me travel, helped me understand life, express myself, all those wonderful things. So I’m very, very grateful; it’s a fun job. It’s a luxury.

I was acting when I was playing baseball.

Plagiarism is always the biggest thing in Hollywood.

I really hope someday in Hollywood, some producer or director will hire me only to do drama.

It’s very rare that you get a director that lets you be creative and bring what you feel your character should do or should be.

I came to Hollywood and within a decade I was one of the biggest action stars of all time.

Acting is just a process of relaxation, actually. Knowing the text so well and trusting that the instinct and the subconscious mind, whatever you want to call it, is going to take over.

I’ve always loved the idea of playing Black Adam.

I don’t know if high society is different in other cities, but in Hollywood, important people can’t stand to be invited someplace that isn’t full of other important people. They don’t mind a few unfamous people being present because they make good listeners.

I tried acting, liked it, and stuck with it. I saw it as the way I would keep that promise to myself of getting back at those who had made my school life a misery.

An actress is not a machine, but they treat you like a machine. A money machine.

I can’t act!

Hollywood is a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.

Life’s like a play: it’s not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters.

I’ve done films where we don’t rehearse, and I’ve done films where we heavily rehearse. I like rehearsals.

When I’m a director, I look at myself the actor as a completely different person. It’s somebody else up there, an actor playing a role. I keep myself out of it.

People usually think according to their inclinations, speak according to their learning and ingrained opinions, but generally act according to custom.

I am able to play monsters well. I understand monsters. I understand madmen.

I enjoy acting when you really hit it right.

Acting is the perfect idiot’s profession.

I prefer directing to acting. There is huge freedom that comes from being behind the camera. It brings a lot of responsibilities as well but is intensely rewarding.

In Hollywood, brides keep the bouquets and throw away the groom.

I had no idea of the character. But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the make-up made me feel the person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked onto the stage he was fully born.

When the first big paycheque with ‚Dumb And Dumber‘ hit, I went: ‚Gosh, I wonder if this will affect my performance. Will I do a take and think, was that worth $7 million?‘ But that never happened. If anything, it made me rebel against that thing when people who get rich start playing it safe.

An actor is supposed to be a sensitive instrument.

I would love to sign on to do a movie if it was the right role and if it was the right script, because I would be taking time away from music to tell a big grand story, and spend all of my time and pouring all of my emotions into being someone else. So for me to do that, it would have to be a story worth telling.

I want to show audiences I can act.

Every time I try to retire, or even think of retiring from acting, my agent comes up with a script.

I’m already the face of the UFC, plus the face of boxing, WWE, and Hollywood.

Hollywood has a way of making everything seem like an overnight success.

Hollywood is not suited for me, and I am not suited for it.

In Hollywood, they think they know it all. You, as a writer, are essentially an outsider. Novelists and short-story writers, especially.

I’d go from film to film and almost detach from one world and jump in another. I was living as these people and not having a self. I didn’t know who I was. And things just get really dark.

I like to hide behind the characters I play. Despite the public perception, I am a very private person who has a hard time with the fame thing.

When you’re supposed to be close and friends in the film, the moment you’re talking as friends off the set, it makes it that much better when you’re filming.

Act well your part, there all the honour lies.

In Hollywood a girl’s virtue is much less important than her hairdo.

I think the message has already been sent to Hollywood, which is that this kid’s a hard worker, he’s talented, and people are coming out to see him. And when you have box-office results, Hollywood treats you different. Hollywood stands up.

Oh yes. I’m an actor, so I just learn my lines, and show up and do it. I gave it a little bit of thought.

It’s much more fun to play something you’re nothing like than what you are… It’s much easier to hide yourself in a character.

I have a big box of autographs. I took photographs of me and Marlene Dietrich, me and Ida Lupino. I took pictures of Myrna Loy and Joel McCrea in front of the studios. I loved Hollywood. I have 500 autographs and 500 photographs I took.

It’s simple: You get a part. You play a part. You play it well. You do your work and you go home. And what is wonderful about movies is that once they’re done, they belong to the people. Once you make it, it’s what they see. That’s where my head is at.

‚Leading man‘ just means people want to see you and assume that you can hold a film, carry a movie.

I will not play just an evil part. In fact, I got offered $7 million several years ago to play the part that Faye Dunaway played in ‚Supergirl.‘ I was kind of insulted. I was impressed with the money, but I said, ‚Why are you asking me to play an evil witch? Do I come across as an evil witch to you?‘

The average Hollywood film star’s ambition is to be admired by an American, courted by an Italian, married to an Englishman and have a French boyfriend.