I'm sort of contrary and stubborn sometimes. When everybody says, 'You have to read this book! You have to read this book!' I'm like 'Oh, I'll get around to it.'

There's no sense in doing something, especially if it's a hard job, if you can't have a little fun.

I think maybe because I do other things and they mean as much to me as movie acting, it takes the onus off me. It's not the end of the world if I can't get a film job, or if a movie doesn't turn out well - even though I don't like it when that happens.

Even the implication that The Lord of the Rings is a mythic story about Western, white supremacy - regardless of the political leanings of anyone who tries to make that case - is a load of self-justifying, destructive horseshit.

It's almost a standard tactic, really, to try to minimize any effort that people in the entertainment business or in any public occupation make to express themselves.

We all experience many freakish and unexpected events - you have to be open to suffering a little. The philosopher Schopenhauer talked about how out of the randomness, there is an apparent intention in the fate of an individual that can be glimpsed later on. When you are an old guy, you can look back, and maybe this rambling life has some through-line. Others can see it better sometimes. But when you glimpse it yourself, you see it more clearly than anyone.

You have a moral obligation to finish the job you said you would do.