Christian Bale

I only sound intelligent when there's a good script writer around. ”

I went backwards and forwards over it until I was 22. And then in the past few years I began to say to myself, OK, look, I'm not messing around. This is something I want to attack, instead of thinking, I'll just see what happens with it. ”

3:10 to Yuma' was one that I just kept on talking and thinking about after reading it. And I think the reason is because, like in most Westerns, you have the very clear-cut bad-guy/good-guy, however, as the movie progresses, you kind of see that it's a very fine line that divides these two. ”

The Machinist' changed me. I learned that I really enjoy, literally, not saying a damned word for days at a time, except for what was in the scene. Whole days of... nothing. Just... standing still. I know a lot of people found it bizarre, because they'd be standing right next to me thinking, 'Why aren't we talking? What's going on?' ”

The only thing that I'm obsessed with is sleeping, and actually, it is more than an obsession, it is a pleasure. ”

I don't want to know about the lives of other actors and I don't want people to know too much about me. If we don't know about the private lives of other actors, that leaves us as clean slates when it comes to playing characters. That's the point, they can create these other characters and I can believe them. ”

You're creating a different world and the actor's job is to be able to convince the audience to enter into that world, whether it be actually something that you recognize from your own life or not. ”

Working out is incredibly boring. I swear it's true that the bigger your muscles get, the fewer brain cells you have. ”

Look, I've got incredible pride for my family. I've absolutely fallen into that cliche of a dad who could just happily talk about my daughter endlessly. ”

It's got to do with putting yourself in other people's shoes and seeing how far you can come to truly understand them. I like the empathy that comes from acting. ”