When I tried to play characters that strayed from who I am it ended in disaster. People didn't expect me in comedies or musicals.

Boxing is a great exercise ... as long as you can yell "cut" whenever you want to.

The champion's management says let's do this for real, for charity. Rocky says no but decides to be true to himself even though he's going to be berated by everyone. Just to compete, not to win.

I wish I had thought of Velcro muscles myself. I didn't have to go to the gym for all those years, all the hours wedded to the iron game, as we call it.

In the movies, I kill guys with an axe. In real life, I can't control a nine-year-old girl.

If I just know in my gut that a film is going to work, I'll fight to the death over it, and I convince myself. When a movie is purely a money job, the film doesn't have the same sort of intensity, and the audience almost senses it, at least that's the way I perceive it. So, yeah, the idea is to do something that you truly, truly believe in.

To know that the odds are so high that only through the perishing of your life will the minions survive, that's love. That's heroism.