Clive Owen Quotes

I am a big soccer fan, and a very big Liverpool fan.

I am comfortable around babies and children because I have two of my own.

When I started in the theater, the joy for me was playing different parts, and I get set alight by different people and different worlds. The biggest joy for me is jumping around and going from that to this to that, never feeling that I'm any one thing - because I'm not, and we as people aren't.

I do get clocked. But it's not invasive to the point where it's upsetting. It doesn't encroach.

I always want my options to be open.

I believe that we live in a time of fractured families where maybe fathers aren't getting enough time to see their kids because life's complications and hardships get in the way of those things.

It's important to me that everyone is treated with respect.

Ultimately, to have a career in movies, to a certain extent, certainly in England, you can't sustain a career in just English movies.

I love to mix it up. I love to keep doing different things.

No matter who the character is and how big their role, that each person in the story is a human being and deserves respect. Even if they're in the story for ten seconds, I didn't want you to just see them as this entity passing through that's serving all of the other people.

As I get older, I've been having a better and better time.

Audiences can be very judgmental.

I'm competitive with myself, not at the expense of everything around me. I never wanted to be a movie star. I just wanted to act.

I'm one of those actors where usually I'll read a script, and then I'll have a flurry of notes. I'll ask a hundred questions about things, and really get in there and examine it.

A huge part of acting in movies is appetite. You do your best work when you've got a lot of appetite and you really want to embrace something. When you get tired, you don't have that hunger.

Obviously, I'm attracted to heavier movies.

I dread karaoke. I hate karaoke. I can't sing - that is why.

Something I don't like seeing in other people is naked ambition, when somebody is really pushing hard to get to where they want to be. That's the way I look at that word - like you must be stepping on someone to get there. And I've never been comfortable with that.

The medical operations are so challenging because they're so technical, as well. I assumed before we started that we would do the classic thing, when it comes to the operations, that we would do all of these inserts with real doctors.

Rudeness can make me angry.

I just love playing good guys.

I watch a film and the most important thing to me is what I think of the movie.

I certainly am not a great believer in over-rehearsing between actors, and certainly not doing the dialogue too much.

I don't think you necessarily identify and believe in the motifs of the character, but you have to want to play it and want to commit to the lines.

Belfast during the Troubles looked like a different world.

I'm not the kind of actor who goes into exhaustive research for each role.

When you're doing those operation scenes, you not only have to be on top of the dialogue and the rhythm of the dialogue and what's happening dramatically, but you've got to technically get the rhythm right, so that everything is fitting with the dialogue at the right time. And you're performing the operation to the audience that's watching it. Thackery has to present it, as well. In some ways, that's the most challenging.

I like to play characters that are convincing, that aren't just straightforward and nice.

The worst piece of advice I've gotten in my whole career is from somebody who said, 'Remember, it's all about likeability.'

I'm just constantly trying to renew and give myself new challenges and push myself to uncomfortable places, trying to get better.

A room full of great sportsmen is so much better than a room full of actors.

I would never give anybody any advice about anything.

It's just lovely to be involved in a movie that does go back to the basics - characters and great writing.

Sometimes you find your destiny on the road you took to avoid it.

The financial implode is bound to be reflected in the movies that are being made, there's no question.

I guess I'm not that metrosexual. My bathroom cabinet is hardly overflowing with products. I only really have my stuff for shaving. I can't honestly say I moisturise, though I probably should.

The theater's a live thing, and film is, to some extent, a discipline where you're putting everything together and trying to execute something exactly. You do it away from people and then you present it at the end.

I was not a very fearful kid, really.

I actually really love working with young actors because they're so responsive and instinctive, and it's a much less honed craft that they're employing.

I never aspired to be anything. What I've done is beyond my wildest.

Jewelery isn't really my thing, but I've always got my eye on people's watches.

I really believe you can carry yourself in such a way that people don't notice you.

As far as career goes, make sure you're in it for the right reasons - and make sure that the work itself is the most important thing.

I never really look at life and worry about missed opportunities.

After drama school I did a seven-month tour of Europe performing in 'Romeo and Juliet.' I played Romeo.

Death frees the beast.

I think I am more attracted to characters with a subtext, whatever that is and they don't necessarily have to be virtuous, but they have to at least be human.

I do wear suits all the time.

I find sometimes that if you do too many takes, it starts to become meaningless to me. It is hard to sustain it for me. I don't want to do too many.

I can honestly say I've never chosen a film because where it's shot is convenient.

I'm the git in the family.

I think that Phil Kaufman is one of the best directors that I have come across.

I can't remember ever being involved in a fight in a movie where I haven't done most of it.

I was very keen on playing a victim.

I've got actor friends who didn't get breaks, who struggle and worry about things that I'm fortunate not to have to worry about.

I've been very fortunate with the scripts I've had and the people I worked with.

I was at the birth of my two girls.

You come ready to work when you know that you are going to get a couple of gos and it. It kind of galvanizes everything and there is something about it that keeps it very alive.

I certainly don't think of myself as an action hero.

I've done a number of things based on real people or true stories or based on books, and I'm a great believer that you have to be true to the script.

As a teenager I was crazy about David Bowie. He was a huge inspiration for me. I dressed a little bit crazily in school and dyed my hair every colour under the sun.

I don't like it when people are trying too hard. That goes for clothes, for acting, for everything. It's just not good when it seems like you're making too much of an effort.

I've got an age that I do think of myself.

One of the views of the [actor's] job is that whatever age you are, there's a role that's about who you are and where you are. There are parts for that age that you can bring things to.

I don't do facials or any of that stuff, but my workout regime does tend to depend on whether I have to take my top off in my next film because otherwise I know I'm too heavy.

There's something to play if there's conflict going on. Whatever that conflict is, that's where drama is; if the character is grappling with something you've got something to play, there's layers to it.

I don't just like to have 1 take, but not too many. I think it is good to keep it alive.

I think it's dangerous to get into ideas of planning careers.

Action scenes are not that different from other scenes.

You see these actresses who have had Botox or something else done, and it takes you out of the film.

A lot of the projects that I do, I like to be involved with earlier. I just feel that, certainly from an acting point of view, it's easier to do my job, if I'm included in what the intentions are, for why people are doing what they're doing, especially with a director.

I'm English and I'm used to coming from a world of period dramas, where there's a very polite restraint to everything. Everybody's sort of sitting in drawing rooms.

I do a lot better if I sit around and think about a character for a couple of months.

I'm sort of one of those weird actors who whenever I do a play, I think, 'Oh, we should film this,' as opposed to have to belt it out of ourselves in a theater auditorium.

For an actor, it's very important to get a clear idea of what a director wants, and their intention for what they want to get out of a scene and how they want to shoot it. Having that knowledge is really valuable, for an actor. It means you can deliver more.

I had to ride a horse once. In 'King Arthur.' I said I could ride, but I had to call for lessons on the day the deal was signed. I started out on this little chunky thing and slowly moved up. It was months of work.

I have a problem with a lot of men's fragrances because they are very strong. Somebody somewhere thinks that masculine means powerful smells, and I find them overbearing and not very pleasant.

Movies are certainly a director's medium, so getting the opportunity to work with really good directors is everything to me.

I treat any scene the same - dialogue, action - you're still creating something in character. It's all acting, fighting.

I live in London and I love living in a gun free environment and long may it continue.

For me really good acting is about subtext.

I think there is a lot of overexplaining both in writing and acting. People don't need to be hit on the head.

I'm just a working actor.

Good dialogue is very important.

After writing a page, Hemingway would let it float to the ground. He never crumpled pages - he believed that if you crumpled them, you'd be insane in a year.

Very often on films, even without a producer credit, I'll be involved, very early on. I want to be there as the thing is taking shape.