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.

I’ve played real people before, but I never knew them.

My apartment is my stage, and my bedroom is my stage – they’re just not stages you’re allowed to see.

I have an immense amount of respect for acting. I’ve always loved movies and was always fascinated by movie-making. But to become an actor, I wanted to commit myself.

There is a need for aloneness, which I don’t think most people realise for an actor. It’s almost having certain kinds of secrets for yourself that you’ll let the whole world in on only for a moment, when you’re acting. But everybody is always tugging at you. They’d all like sort of a chunk of you.

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 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.

A public man must never forget that he loses his usefulness when he as an individual, rather than his policy, becomes the issue.

I feel only my friends and family need to know what is happening in my personal life.

Fortunately, we have help from the media. I have to say this: I’m very grateful for the support and kindness that we’ve gotten. People have respected their privacy and in that way, I think, you know, no matter what people may feel about my husband’s policies or what have you, they care about children and that’s been good to see.

You can’t reverse fame. You can lose all the money, but you’ll never lose people knowing you.

There are only two occasions when Americans respect privacy, especially in Presidents. Those are prayer and fishing.

You know when you’re young and you see a play in high school, and the guys all have gray in their hair and they’re trying to be old men and they have no idea what that’s like? It’s just that stupid the other way around.

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.

The Internet made fame wack and anonymity cool.

I think that people are interested seeing me on the screen.

It’s dangerous to read the Internet about yourself when you’re me. Or when you’re anyone in the public eye.

As soon as I go out into the world, I belong, in a way, to everyone else. It’s legal to follow me. It’s legal to stalk me at the beach. And I can’t call the police or ask them to leave.

I think it’s very important to cry in the shower and not in front of them. They need to know that everything’s going to be all right, even when you’re not sure it is.

He that displays too often his wife and his wallet is in danger of having both of them borrowed.

Like any creative human being, I would like a bit more control so that it would be a little easier for me when the director says, ‚One tear, right now,‘ that one tear would pop out.

I hope when I’m dead I’ll be considered an icon, though.

I never wanted to be Marilyn – it just happened. Marilyn’s like a veil I wear over Norma Jeane.

Overnight stardom can be harmful to your mental health. Yeah. It has ruined a lot of people.

The things most people want to know about are usually none of their business.

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

My act is an exaggeration of a part of me. I’m much more expressive off stage.

Once you’ve lost your privacy, you realize you’ve lost an extremely valuable thing.

A lot of artists fail when they try to act, and they flop. So when I get into acting, it’s going to be to do it well, something good, something of quality. I want people to say, ‚Wow, that movie‘ – or that show or whatever – ‚turned out really well.‘

Stand-up can take you in so many different places, man. So many doors can be opened up from stand-up comedy, and the first one that was opened up for me was acting.

The challenge for me as an actor is if you become a celebrity, you don’t meet strangers anymore. And strangers are where we have our anonymity. And I believe it’s essential for the soul to be anonymous, especially if you’re going to be an actor.

Give yourself more opportunities for privacy, when you are not bombarded with duties and obligations. Privacy is not a rejection of those you love; it is your deserved respite for recharging your batteries.

Acting is nothing more or less than playing. The idea is to humanize life.

Fame hit me like a ton of bricks.

I was an overnight sensation.

On the Internet, you think everything is going to be public.

I worked with Lawrence Olivier some years ago. He was a great mentor.

People want to act like they know celebrities. They want to see pictures. They want to know where you’re going. They want to hear you talk about your family.

The nice thing about being a celebrity is that, if you bore people, they think it’s their fault.

You want to play another kind of character in another genre, and it’s been something I’ve been trying to do if I can in the career so far, and it’s something I hope to continue because it’s interesting to me and you get to do different things as an actor.

There is obviously a gap between the public’s perception of the role of U.S. foreign policy and the elite’s perception.

People think I’m a celebrity. I’m not a celebrity.

Acting is a nice childish profession – pretending you’re someone else and, at the same time, selling yourself.

At some point in time, you definitely have to go drama. Not to say that you’re going drama just because everybody else does it. You do it to challenge yourself. You do it because, naturally, in the profession of acting, you want to show growth. You want to say that you take the craft seriously.

I’ve been fortunate. I don’t pick scripts. Scripts pick me.

I’ve learned that usually, the less I know about other people, the better off I am.

Acting is just a way of making a living, the family is life.

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

The fact that my 15 minutes of fame has extended a little longer than 15 minutes is somewhat surprising to me and completely baffling to my wife.

If you were to ask me to choose between democratic values and wealth, power, prosperity and fame, I will very easily and without any doubt choose democratic values.

I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; A stage where every man must play a part, And mine is a sad one.

People are very reluctant to talk about their private lives but then you go to the internet and they’re much more open.

It’s against all of our policies for an application to ever share information with advertisers.

When I got into this, I never thought about reviews. I never thought about what people would say about me, I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor, and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

There should be a law that no ordinary newspaper should be allowed to write about art. The harm they do by their foolish and random writing it would be impossible to overestimate – not to the artist, but to the public, blinding them to all but harming the artist not at all.

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.

Wood burns because it has the proper stuff in it; and a man becomes famous because he has the proper stuff in him.

I don’t let the left hand know what the right hand is doing.

I can walk through a hotel lobby and watch people at the desk and see what they’re doing. People don’t look at me. They don’t even know I’m there.

I don’t like people looking at someone else’s image.

If one has a good disposition, what other virtue is needed? If a man has fame, what is the value of other ornamentation?