Quotes

I aspire to be a director...I think it stems from wanting to be a conductor, another desire of mine from my childhood, though I was not interested in music, not at all. I just wanted to control that orchestra.

There was a point where I was just going to call myself "uh" because people would walk up to me in the street and say "Hey you're, uh..." That would just make it a lot easier for them. And I could just say "Yes, I am!".

I blame Ridley Scott really, because he was the person who went "I love 'Star Trek' and I'd love it if you were in my movie [Kingdom of Heaven (2005)]" and people like Oliver Stone went "I hated 'Star Trek' and I don't want you in Alexander (2004)!". I was really lucky there.

[on the Arabic people] We're a pretty passionate lot, but we're also incredibly zipped up. We're very sort of guarded, especially in public, and dignity and sense of honour and duty are terribly important.

[on his role on Cairo Time (2009)] It was a real treasure, a treat, to find a character, a role, that wasn't intent on trying to blow up the White House or hijack an airplane.

[on Clash of the Titans (2010)] That was possibly the lamest movie I've ever been in. I mean, you know, there's some times when you do duds, and I must've been rubbish, because I think there was all of one minute more of performance that I may have done that didn't end up in the movie. So 50% of my performance was cut and...yeah, there's not much you can say about that.

[on Reign of Fire (2002)] The only thing I remember about that was the first day. The first A.D. came into the trailer where we were all having our makeup and shit done, and he was, like "Guys, I need your attention, please." And we were, like "Yeah?" And he said, "Um, Mr. McConaughey's gonna arrive on set in about 15 minutes, and I have to give you a directive - which comes from the producers - that you are not to call him 'Matthew' or 'Mr. McConaughey' or anything to do with his real life. You must call him Van Zan." Van Zan was his character name. "And even if you meet him outside in the road, even if you meet him out in town in Dublin," where we were shooting this movie, "You must call him Van Zan." And that is exactly what I remember about that movie, because as that first A.D. left the building, I shouted - rather lamely - "And he's got to call me Elvis!" But he didn't call me Elvis. In fact, he didn't call me anything!