Style, no matter how outrageous it is, is still an expression of someone`s personality. And my personality is somewhere stuck in the classics.

That`s the hard thing about adapting a book that`s so well loved. It`s like playing Hamlet. The audience doesn`t buy it, because they`re Hamlet. How could you possibly be Hamlet when Hamlet is them? It`s one of those difficult things where a good writer gives the reader ownership of the material. They develop an intimate relationship with it and become its protectors, and rightly so. Whether they like the movie or not, there is something a bit outrageous about exploiting their private story.

Some actors need to be rattled and some need to be focused.

You can think about your career or you can think about your job. I like to think about my job.

Hamlet is a remarkably easy role. Physically it`s hard because it tends to be about three hours long and you`re talking the whole time. But it`s a simple role and it adapts itself very well, because the thing about Hamlet is, we all are Hamlet.

My publicist told me not to talk about politics but, yes, I think we have a president who stole the election.

I was a writer. I just wasn`t a very good one. I was lucky enough to have a playwriting teacher who told me that I`d be a better actor than I would a playwright.

I really don`t think there is anybody in the business with better eyes than Elijah Wood.

It`s good to overexpose yourself with work. But don`t expose yourself too much with the press.

It`s good to overexpose yourself with work. But don`t expose yourself too much with the press.

I live with an 18-month-old Jack Russell named Chicken. He moved in about 15 months ago, and it was very hard at first because I work a lot and he doesn`t.

You can think about your career or you can think about your job. I like to think about my job.

Style, no matter how outrageous it is, is still an expression of someone`s personality. And my personality is somewhere stuck in the classics.

Everyone assumes that novelists are smarter and more interesting. They`re generally smarter and more interesting, but they`re often very short. So it kind of cancels all the smart and interesting stuff out.

I think a certain amount of Ricky`s rage and profanity has been a nice vent from the frustrations of the editing room, so it`s great to come out screaming profanities at the audience for an hour and a half after eight hours of trying to be diplomatic in the editing room. on editing `Everything is Illuminated` at the same time as acting as foul-mouthed Ricky Roma in "Glengarry Glen Ross"

I manage to hide in my movies.

I didn`t think that a career in theater was very realistic so I thought the only thing I could make money doing and still be somewhat artistic was, god help me, advertising.

If you are going to remake a film, you may as well remake a classic. I do think great stories have a way of retelling themselves. The medium is so young that so much is not content-driven, it`s about stars and the studio. But when we have gotten through that phase of film, which I figure we probably will in about 15 or 20 years, films will be able to stand on the legs of their stories.

You should never ask actors about politics.

When I`m doing classical theater, I feel engaged and all pistons running and like I`m on new territory, because the size of it is so much bigger and the scope so much broader. - to Variety (05/1999)

Trying to escape the powder puff and the man blush was the primary motivation for this whole endeavor. It`s weird. You think, `Now I`m going to direct, and they won`t give me such a hard time about how I look.` But sure enough, there they are, coming at you with the powder puff and the man blush. [on the make-up required to `hide` his nose]

Everyone assumes that novelists are smarter and more interesting. They`re generally smarter and more interesting, but they`re often very short. So it kind of cancels all the smart and interesting stuff out.

It`s not easy being 6` 3 and being called `Huggy`." - on the nickname he`s had since childhood

I think that for me, I`m in a great place. I work all the time, I hang out in fancy hotels, and I do interviews all day, and I get free coffee.

If you fall in love with somebody you`re working with, fine, but wait till your project is over.

As soon as you know what you`re doing, you`re doing it wrong.

I am so used to being able to express myself from being an actor. So when people don`t understand me, I`m just completely lost.

If I`m doing my job as an actor, the audience knows everything I know about the character.

There`s the private persona and the public persona and the two shall never meet.