You do the work and you want people to see it; but, um while I'm doing the work, the result doesn't matter at all to me. Ultimately, I don't, I don't care whether the film is - you know - some big giant box-office bonanza and I don't care if its a complete flop. To me, when a film gets made and it's actually finished it's a success. They're all a success in their own way.

People get famous now for I-don't-know-what. People have reality shows because they're a Hollywood socialite, and these things become very successful and they generate a shitload of money for the company. And it's multiplying, to where you're literally looking into your next door neighbor's bathroom with reckless abandon. It is like watching a fire. You can't take your eyes off of it.

They tell you to be careful because maybe you don't want to meet your heroes. I've met pretty much every one, and I've never been let down.

An actor needs to be not remotely anywhere close to in control, and a filmmaker has to be totally in control.

[The huge success of Curse of the Black Pearl] made perfect sense to me on the one hand, and at the same time, it made no sense at all, which I kind of enjoyed. Even now, with the dolls and the cereal boxes and snacks and fruit juices, it all just feels fun to me, in a Warholian way. It's absurd. It doesn't get more absurd.

My recipe for success is chance, basically. Just luck. It's a miracle that people still hire me after some of the stuff I've gotten away with. Honestly!

I suppose nowadays it's all a question of surgery, isn't it? Of course the notion is beautiful, the idea of staying a boy and a child forever, and I think you can. I have known plenty of people who, in their later years, had the energy of children and the kind of curiosity and fascination with things like little children. I think we can keep that, and I think it's important to keep that part of staying young. But I also think it's great fun growing old.