I like the challenge of trying different things and wondering whether it's going to work or whether I'm going to fall flat on my face.

I had never experienced anything like the response I got from people for Pirates of the Caribbean, where you meet a 75-year-old woman who had seen Pirates and somehow related to the character, and then five minutes later you meet a six-year-old who says, 'Oh, you're Captain Jack!' What a rush. What a gift. That was the challenge with Wonka, too--to be, in a sense, like Bugs Bunny. I find it magical that a three-year-old can be mesmerized by Bugs, but so can a 40-year-old or an 80-year-old. It's a great challenge to see if you can appeal to that huge an age range.

[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.

When you play a character that exists or existed, there's a stronger responsibility that you have. You owe that person and then you owe the family, you owe history, you owe the victims, the victims' families.

I have toyed with the idea of playing it straight. But, like I say, I really believe we are all out of our minds at some level.

[on buying a private island] Money doesn't buy you happiness, but it buys you a big enough yacht to sail right up to it.

If you fall in love with 2 people at once choose the second one because if you truly loved the first one you never would have fell in love with the second one