Quotes

Being Irish is very much a part of who I am. I take it everywhere with me.

[on people who drink tequila] I tell them, "When you're at home puking your guts out, I'll be here drinking my Amstel Light.".

[on appearing nude in Tigerland (2000)] I couldn't care less about who sees my bits... My friends asked how I could do scenes like that and not get excited, but it wasn't like that. My bits looked the size of a cashew nut!

[on physical training for film roles] I find it the most tedious waste of life. It's so boring. I'd prefer to be sitting in a pub with a few strangers talkin' shit than looking at meself in the mirror runnin' on the treadmill.

It all goes back to [Joel Schumacher]. I wouldn't have done Phone Booth (2002) without him. I wouldn't be doing Hart's War (2002). I probably wouldn't have done American Outlaws (2001) if he hadn't picked me out of obscurity. I've worked, but not at the level or people I'm working with now if he hadn't taken a chance on an Irish kid playing a Texan.

I'm in no hurry to get anywhere. I don't have any plans. I don't have a map. If you did in this business, you would destroy yourself. Hardship tends to unify.

[on Hollywood] I'm not seduced by it all. I swear to God. I'm easily pleased, yeah. Don't get me wrong, I'll indulge in it. I'll be in Los Angeles for two weeks and I'll have a laugh, get battered and have a buzz, but at the end of the day, I'll go home. It's just me earning a few more stories to tell everyone at home and all.

[on his football aspirations as a youth] It kind of went downhill, I was smoking a bit of reef. You know, you roll your first joint, drink your first beer and discover the girls and, well, that was it. I loved football, but I couldn't make the training any more.

I do have the ability to explore life and to be over the moon at the smallest thing - a few pints and a craic in the pub and I'm in heaven. But I have a melancholy side to me as well. Acting allows me to feel things, it kind of buys me human experience. And I don't mean this as acting as higher cause, because it's not, but it does kind of have a higher awareness emotionally.

I work my arse off. I'm never late, ask anyone. I'm only 27. I don't feel like a big star. I feel neither the pressure nor the grandeur of my situation, you know. I think I'm still trying to find my feet as an actor. And I know it ain't brain surgery, but it confuses me and it comes between me and my sleep a lot.

I'm just a true Irish boy at heart. I'm just myself, I stick by my guns and I treat people the way I think they should be treated, regardless of their status. And I just have a laugh.

[on the girl that will interest him] The usual obvious bullshit. Sense of humour, a bit of danger, good fun. A good heart is a really sexy thing. All women have the potential to be sexy and it's nothing to do with the dress someone wears or the make-up they put on their face, it's the aged-old cliché saying: "What comes from inside." God, I've met gorgeous women who I'd fancy and give one to, but at the end of the day, they're not particularly sexy because they haven't got much going inside and they are too concerned with themselves. And then I've met women who wouldn't be as nearly as attractive and, because of the sense of fun they have and their joi de vivre, as they say, they would be much sexier and you'd fall for them in a nanosecond.

I get no kicks from going to the gym. It doesn't do it for me. Never has. Some people enjoy working out. But that's never done it for me. In the past, I'd breathe in heavily between takes. I sucked it in and did a take. That way it doesn't hurt the beer consumption at all.

Anything I am and anything I hope to be, I have my mom to thank.

I think I was 8 or 9 when I had a f*cking mad thing for Marilyn Monroe. I used to leave Smarties, the Irish equivalent of M&M's, under my pillow with a little note saying, "I know you're dead, but these are very f*cking tasty, and you should come have a few. I won't tell anyone.".

[on In Bruges (2008)] - When I read it, I said to Martin McDonagh, the director, "I don't think you should hire me." I said I come with a certain amount of baggage that has been well-earned through the years and this piece is so pure, I would love the audience to not have too much of a relationship with any of the actors. Thankfully, he didn't listen to me.

[on Miami Vice (2006)] - I didn't like it so much. I thought it was style over substance and I accept a good bit of the responsibility. I think we missed an opportunity. It was never going to be Lethal Weapon (1987), but I think we missed an opportunity to have a friendship that also had some elements of fun.

The ins and outs of what I've been through, even when it comes to rehab, is not a sad story. None of it is a sad story. I had a great time and some amazing memories and lots of good stuff that I've forgotten. I went from being in Ballykissangel (1996) to starring opposite Bruce Willis in Hart's War (2002) in the space of two years.

Fame was something that seemed incredibly exotic. It represented the ultimate kind of status. But it eventually became one of those 'be careful what you wish for' things.

I'd like to make big films and small films, mainly because I'm a massive fan of film. The idea of doing an Indiana Jones, or even an Inception (2010) - I love the grandiosity, how sweepingly entertaining films can be. And I think there's a place for films that pry more into the human condition.

My Dublin wasn't the Dublin of sing-songs, traditional music, sense of history and place and community. It was kind of more nouveau-riche, competition with the neighbours, a bit more privileged than the Dublin of lore.

[on his vampire character in Fright Night (2011)] He is an incredible observer of human behavior. Human beings are simultaneously a point of fascination and a point of disgust. He is sick of them. They are weak, they are flawed, they feel too much. But he needs them to survive.

[on scathing reviews for his performance in Alexander (2004)] That was fairly defining. I seriously thought of walking away from it all.

When I went to the Oscars for the first time I was gobsmacked and I mean I've been three times. It's huge, it's ridiculous and it's pompous and equally it's exciting and awe-inspiring. It means nothing and it means loads.

[on getting into top shape for Total Recall (2012)] I knew it was going to be a physical shoot. So I thought, I'm gonna put on a bit of weight, I'm gonna put on a bit of muscle and I'll get as fit as I've ever been... I did three miles every day on the treadmill, I'd do an hour and a half of weights. I'd go home, have something to eat, go for a two hour hike on the hills. I did that six days a week for three months!

[2012, on quitting drinking] When I knocked the jar on the head seven years ago, it was a big life change. You know, you don't just not drink and then act the same way and live the same way. For me, the drink was a huge part of my identity and it was a huge part of who I felt I was as a man. I'd been drinking since I was 14. So when that's gone, your life changes a little bit.

[on getting into yoga] I was suspicious for a bit. I remember thinking about six months into not drinking 'fuck, I bet you I'm going to start doing fucking yoga at some stage. Next thing I'll be a vegan'. I remember feeling embarrassed about this new health buzz that I was getting into bit by bit... I was at home in the garden with a cup of tea and I had nothing to do. Will I go and see a film? No, I'll go and do fucking yoga. For me, walking into a yoga studio was mortifying. It was like walking into a guitar shop or a motor bike shop - instant inferiority complex, when you're not part of the gang. But I took a class and haven't looked back since... You spend so much time in your head in life. And what yoga does is, it asks you to allow your head to be quiet, to allow it to be still, just for an hour and a half. Just deal with your body and your breath. And it's a great workout. I love it.

[on Alexander (2004)] The reviews and the financial catastrophe that it was made me ask questions about what I was doing and if I wanted to do it. There was a certain amount of craft I lacked at the time. But all of us involved in that film worked our arses off and gave it 110 per cent. As Anthony Hopkins' character says: "All men, we reach, we fall, we reach, we fall." That was prophetic because the film reached so far. I've heard the fifth cut is genius. Oliver Stone has said: "At last, it's the film I wanted to make. [2013]

Valentine's Day - I don't even know what that's about. I mean, it's an excuse, I don't think there's anything wrong with flowers or chocolate-covered cherries, but it would be nice if it didn't take a commercially-promoted holiday for people to extend themselves in gestures of love.

[on Ireland] The depth of our cultural complexities, our music, literature, community and the pain that we share means that I could be away from there for 50 years and I wouldn't feel any less Irish.

Unconsciously that's why I ended up being the level of drug addict I did. I grew up being told that I was very fortunate, but being unable to feel the good fortune for years. So I created difficulty for myself. I was in love with self-propagated pain, darkness, Dostoevsky, lonely nights howling at the moon, writing bad poetry. For f***'s sake!

I became a parody. Everything was magnified: the opportunities I had, the money I earned. So the smokescreen [I created] was magnified: it was the one true consistency I had. That was like a cancer after a while. If you build a dam, water becomes a bigger version of itself. Then the dam broke, and I thought, "I don't know who I am any more, what I've become." One of the most liberating days of my life was in rehab, when I realized how many fears I had. Was I smart or dumb? Was I a good lover, son, father, actor?

Spinning out of control was preordained. After Tigerland it was, "Here's the keys to the city; here's a few million; here's a bag of..." At a certain level, you are allowed to do whatever the f*** you want, in a way that is maddening... But if I'd had better guidance, I wouldn't have reached such commercial highs, but it would've been interesting to see what the work would've been like. Of course, the drugs affected my performances then, but I have no idea how.

I created an environment for myself and a way of living for myself that on the outside seemed incredibly gregarious and vivacious and it was just... I don't believe I have any chemical pre-disposition towards depression but let's just call it, I was suffering from a spiritual malady I suppose, for years, and I just indulged that it was sweet. Because at times to be in pain, if it's self-perpetuated, at times, can be sweet. You can feel very alive when you're in pain. And I also know that from another perspective when somebody who I love in my life has passed away, there is something incredibly vivacious about feeling pain and mourning and even if it's as egocentric and self-indulgent about mourning for yourself. or pitying for yourself and that sort of stuff. So I'm glad I'm out of that cycle of my life, and I'm very lucky that way.

Desperation will allow you to do incredible things in the name of survival.

We all try and strike a balance in life, but there is an ugly balance that says the better some people do the worse others do. That's a cruel balance. It's an imbalance.

I am so ready to not talk about films, to not see a camera, to not have any idea that things such as fame and acting exist. I am so ready to get the fuck away. I have absolute gratitude for what I do for a living. I love it, but I want to step away and live a little.

People talk about their children taking the first step. It's obviously a monumental moment and it's been represented in film. But to be told your child may never take the first step and then see those first steps is just kind of a different sport all together

[on his son James born with a rare genetic disorder called Angelman syndrome, a developmental disability]We share in the smallest victories; the first words at age six or seven, being able to feed oneself at 9, and getting the seizures under control. When you're the parent of a child with special needs, it's important to feel that you're not alone

I decided, after consulting with James' mother, that I wanted to talk publicly about the pride and joy I had in our son.

[on his son James]When James took his first steps a couple weeks short of his fourth birthday, it was pretty amazing and humbling to see