Fear is like the steam that fires the combustion engine. You need fear to get a performance going.

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Normally, I would do research. For The Constant Gardener, I played an activist, so I went to meet activists. You can find them dotted around. But with The Brothers Bloom, I couldn't meet a nutty heiress who lived in a bubble in a mansion. There was no one to meet. So this was just an active imagining, a daydream.

The bond between mother and baby is so interesting. Women have been giving birth since the beginning of time, but when it happens to you it feels like a miracle.

You have to be quite stupid to act.

Now we're in a recession, and at war, so people want to see this chihuahua movie, The Fountain. To be told to come to terms with death, that death is the road to all - it's a very intense subject. But as with movies that are very unusual, that have come to be thought of as very interesting, one finds out at the time that they were not understood. So who knows? We'll see. A lot of people really, really loved it, and a lot of people didn't get it.

I just kind of muddled through in my 20s. I did whatever I got offered, to be honest, to pay the bills. I didn't really know what I was doing. There are some actors in their 20s who are very sure. I wasn't very sure what I was doing. I feel like I've only really just got going.