I am an American. I love my country and have great hopes for it. It is for this reason that I speak candidly and sometimes critically about it. I have benefited greatly from the freedom that exists in my country, and for this, I am eternally grateful.

If someone is being bullied or feels like an outsider, and they relate to something that I've done, even if it's just igniting a spark, that's great. I had that feeling as a kid. I was messed with no end.

You grow up a bit damaged or broken then you have some success but you don't know how to feel good about the work you're doing or the life you're leading.

There's no truth anymore.

It's funny, because what happens to me when I read a script, when something grabs hold of me, I start getting these flashes of people or places or things or images.

I do realise and understand very well on a profound level how lucky I am and what a privileged position it is and what it's done ultimately for me, my family and my kids. But at the same time, there are moments in a man's life when you just kind of want to feel somewhat normal.

My job, as an actor, is to give the director options. You can only hope that the takes that you thought were the best were chosen. But, then again, if I don't watch it, I'll never know.

Over the years all these vampire movies have come out and nobody looks like a vampire anymore.

I marketed pens - on the phone. But the beauty of the gig was that you had to call these strangers and say, 'Hi, how ya doing?' You made up a name, like, 'Hey, it's Edward Quartermaine from California. You're eligible to receive this grandfather clock or a trip to Tahiti.' You promise them all these things if they buy a gross of pens.

You use your money to buy privacy because during most of your life you aren't allowed to be normal.

If there's any message to my work, it is ultimately that it's OK to be different, that it's good to be different, that we should question ourselves before we pass judgment on someone who looks different, behaves different, talks different, is a different color.

I have a place that I get to go to in the Bahamas. It's the only place that guarantees total anonymity and freedom.

France, and the whole of Europe have a great culture and an amazing history. Most important thing though is that people there know how to live! In America they've forgotten all about it. I'm afraid that the American culture is a disaster.

The term 'serious actor' is kind of an oxymoron, isn't it? Like 'Republican party' or 'airplane food.'

There are times when you see how ridiculous is this life, how ludicrous it is, you know, leaving your house every morning and being followed by paparazzi.

The beauty, the poetry of the fear in their eyes. I didn't mind going to jail for, what, five, six hours? It was absolutely worth it.

I like the challenge of trying different things and wondering whether it's going to work or whether I'm going to fall flat on my face.

As a teenager I was so insecure. I was the type of guy that never fitted in because he never dared to choose. I was convinced I had absolutely no talent at all. For nothing. And that thought took away all my ambition too.

As a teenager I was so insecure. I was the type of guy that never fitted in because he never dared to choose. I was convinced I had absolutely no talent at all. For nothing. And that thought took away all my ambition too.

It's such a funny thing when you see your daughter transitioning from your baby, your little girl, to suddenly being a young woman. If you're not really looking for it, you can miss it, and Lily-Rose is on that road already, and there's nothing I can do to stop it.

I detest jokes - when somebody tells me one, I feel my IQ dropping; the brain cells start to disappear. But something is funny when the person delivering the line doesn't know it's funny or doesn't treat it as a joke. Maybe it comes from a place of truth, or it's a sort of rage against society.

I moved from Kentucky to Miramar, Florida, at about 8. I think I was in second grade. I still had my Southern accent, and down there, you got to experience a melting pot in full fury. All the kids I hung out with were, like, Sicilian kids from Jersey and New York.

I was ecstatic they re-named 'French Fries' as 'Freedom Fries'. Grown men and women in positions of power in the U.S. government showing themselves as idiots.

I have this fear of clowns, so I think that if I surround myself with them, it will ward off all evil.

I was the guy who had been bouncing around the film industry for years, and I'd been lucky if five or 10 people would see my movies, so Captain Jack did a big flip for my career.

I've never felt particularly ambitious or driven, that's for sure, although I like to create stuff, whether it's a little doodle, a drawing, a small painting or a movie or a piece of music, so I suppose I'm driven by that. Everything I've done has felt very natural, and it's happened because it's happened.

The only creatures that are evolved enough to convey pure love are dogs and infants.

Life's pretty good, and why wouldn't it be? I'm a pirate, after all.

On a film, you start to get closer and closer with the people you're working with, and it becomes like this circus act or this travelling family.

When you have children, there is no room for lies, no room for anything but the truth. Anything other than that is a bad example, I believe.

Nobody's ever made a film in the history of cinema where they weren't expecting some return on their dough.