"That was the first conversation in my life that I’d ever heard the phrase Al Qaeda. And it was something to do with some recording picked up by a French policewoman, I think, in either Libya or Algiers. And it was a destabilization plan. I don’t think that I was the only person. But it was about—and here’s another little touch of irony— it was about taking iconographic Americans out of the picture as a sort of cultural-destabilization plan."

“Oh yeah, there was a point where they said they thought the threat had probably or had possibly been overstated, and then they started to question their sources, and blah, blah, blah. But I don't know how it was resolved, you know? But they were serious about it. And what can you say? I mean, gee, there were a lot of man-hours spent doing that gig, so the least I can say is, "Thank you very much.”

“People accuse me of being arrogant all the time. I'm not arrogant, I'm focused. I don't make demands. I don't tell you how it should be. I'll give you fucking options, and it's up to you to select or throw 'em away. That should be the headline: If you're insecure, don't fucking call.”

“To be honest, when you're younger and cooler, you say those sort of things don't mean anything, but then on the day when they pat you on the back and they say, "Look, mate, we're noticing what you're doing-thanks very much;' you think of the people who spent a life in the cinema and didn't receive that kind of accolade, and it's sort of a humbling experience. And it's very nice and all that. But it doesn't change the way I do things.”

“On the set of Gladiator, I didn’t have a very good relationship with the producers. I had a very good relationship with Ridley , but the producers couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t just chill out. The reason I wouldn't chill out was because I knew that if I did fucking chill out, in those five minutes something stupid would now be in the movie. Like, they were trying to get me to do a love scene, and I'm saying to them, "What we're doing here is about the vengeance of a man whose wife has been killed— you cannot have him stop off for a little bit of nooky on the way.”

“It was a 100 percent fucking home run, except the central character of William Shakespeare was not a fucking writer— he was not smelly enough, he was not unshaven enough, and obviously hadn't had enough to drink. He was some prissy pretty boy. What the fuck? That's so disrespectful.”

“I'd move to Los Angeles if New Zealand and Australia were swallowed up by a tidal wave, if there was a bubonic plague in England and if the continent of Africa disappeared from some Martian attack.”