Instead of setting goals, seek defining moments. Those are the real tests, because you have to be willing to fail in a pressure situation in front of other people.

Doing anything worthwhile takes forever.

If you get too heavy with the nods and winks, people get a sense that they're excluded from something. If they're in screenings and everyone's laughing, and they don't know what the hell it's about, somehow you feel excluded from the party, or like you're not in the inner circle. As a performer, that's the worst thing you can do to an audience. It's fun, but you have to be very careful with it.

My agent said to me five years ago, 'Hugh, I can see one day you... if I had to plan a goal for you, it's for you to have the kind of career that Sinatra had.'

I can look back on my life, where there have been moments where things might have gone the other way. Everything is like stepping stones, and I've seen people I admire falter. We're all vulnerable.

I truly believe that the job of an actor and the drive of an actor is simulating the internal journey in life which is to get deeper and deeper into our understanding of who we are.

I'm doing 'Les Miserables,' the movie. I've done a lot of musicals and a lot of movies, and I know there are not a lot of people in Hollywood who have been down those two paths so I've been like, 'Come on, let's do a movie/musical.'