Jason Clarke Quotes

I'm not in a 'starry' position to be able to pick and choose, but I am interested in telling stories of substance with great directors - that's my only guiding principle.

I give everything to my work, and I like complex roles, characters that aren't obvious. I've been very lucky so far, and I'm dreaming of working with directors like Jane Campion, Susanne Bier and the Dardennes. But the gods will decide.

I'm looking for challenges, and as always, what matters is the script, the character and the director.

I'm not sure I'll find acting satisfying creatively forever. If you get the good roles, it's great - if you have the freedom to choose your projects and not just do anything and everything.

I love directing; it felt right to me when I did 'Flying Lessons'. It's something I will do again. Really, you can always be working and developing. That's something that's kind of ever constant.

I don't put the pressure on myself to be a very successful movie star. I want to enjoy being an actor and I want to be challenged by the roles I take.

I've just always loved really good projects. The things that draw me into a new project have very little to do with genre and have more to do with the characters I'll be playing, the people I'll get to work with and things like that.

I gotta make a living. I make no bones about that. Most actors do. But within that context, I've never not tried to make something as fresh and alive as I possibly could make it.

I believe that, by directing, it makes me a better executive as well.

I think it's about finding the character you want to play and the people you want to work with.

Ultimately what I try to do is work on stories I love with people I admire, and sometimes they get made and sometimes they don't.

I want to do films that will make an impact and project me in a different way.

You hope that the same people are coming back. I love playing with Angela [Bassett]. She's fierce. I met her years and years ago when she was a student at Yale, so to see her do these fierce roles and go on to [be] this powerhouse has just been awesome.

I've liked all the directors I've worked with a lot. And the ones I like best are the ones that have really good taste about what take was best.

In the '80s, it was difficult and frustrating to appear in the theater and TV again, even though I had some successful shows and hit records. Now, I have to say, the '90s are the best decade of my life. I've done the best work and, in a funny way, I'm enjoying the most success... more than in the '70s.

I've always had the same principle for choosing roles, which is to try and make movies that I would pay to see. As I get older, that's meant different things.

I've done jobs where I thought, 'I don't want to be that kind of actor; I don't want to work on something with people who don't have the same kind of goal as I do.'

I haven't made a career off my looks, thank God, but hopefully how I've moved people emotionally, the directors I've been able to work with, and the stories I've been a part of.

'Avatar' means so many things to so many different people. When I think of the creation of it, I think of me and Mike at the computer in a little apartment in Burbank.

An artist has to know who she is and to be consistent in building her career.

Certainly there is a lot of collaboration, but there is also a lot of clarity that has to be had in the vision that you have for the film when you come in as the director. Without that, there's no bullseye to be aiming for.

I am very happy that I am getting to play such layered and demanding characters. I feel blessed that directors are trusting me with such roles.

I think something that every actor wants, whether they've done four movies or forty movies, is they want to find the work interesting. You want to come to work and think this is going to be a challenge.

I no longer take on everything offered. Instead, I go up for roles I like, things that I would enjoy watching, stories that I want to tell.

Not that I'm in the stage of my career where they're offering me parts in 'The Revenant,' but I try very hard to go through the audition process because I feel like I learn quite a lot about the character and the people I'm going to work with.