Joaquin Phoenix Quotes

With public figures involved in a relationship it seems that there is a machine behind their love so oftentimes.

The offers were, like, a lot of money - maybe not for other actors, but definitely for me. But I don't want that power. I don't want $20-million power.

There are kids who get on BMX bike when they are eight years old and they go,'Whoa, this is incredible,' and grow up to do extreme sports. It is the same for me with acting.

My personal life absolutely goes down the drain when I start working; that's something that I'm incapable of doing.

I know if I'm lost in the moment or not.

They tell you to memorize your lines, follow your light, and hit your marks. Those are the three things that you shouldn't do. You should not learn your lines, you should not hit your mark, and you should never follow your light. Find your light - that's my opinion. Everyone else will tell me I'm wrong, but that's my opinion.

I just hope my death makes more cents than my life

I feel like everything you learn as an actor growing up is wrong. You're supposed to hit your mark, find your light and know your lines. Those are all things that just make things wooden, dull and boring.

I love doing the music. I love programming beats and kind of working on the music as much, if not more, than the actual rapping.

I still think that movies are amazing; I respect actors and directors.

Well, I think that you know, I threatened myself with quitting after every movie. But I think everybody does that, right?

When I decide to do something, I stick with it, total commitment.

I'm not technical.

You see so many earnest characters in movies all the time, everyone has a purpose.

I just I don't feel challenged by acting anymore. I don't enjoy the process anymore.

Well, I haven't signed anything giving people the right to do anything they want with my image, you know what I mean. I have the ultimate say.

Things are rarely as exciting or dramatic as we make them out to be in the press.

I don't spend most of my life in front of the media.

I guess my experience with some stuff is kind of abstract.

I feel an obligation to set the record straight. Actors that say they're affected by something, that it changes their life, that they take it home with them, they're just trying to get nominated for an Oscar!

Might I be ridiculous? Might my career in music be laughable? Yeah, that's possible, but that's certainly not my intention.

There is no need for fur - since there are compassionate alternatives.

I enjoy writing rhymes and sitting alone in a room listening to beats. It's pretty amazing.

For as long as I've been making movies, I really don't know a lot of the technical side. I mean, I've actively and consciously tried to avoid learning that stuff. I just want to be open and receptive to what's happening in the moment, and I don't want to force anything.

I didn't know much about him, and I wasn't a big country music fan. I listened to the Beatles and David Bowie, so I didn't know a lot about him.

I would try and sing along with bands that I like but it sounded so atrocious that I couldn't.

I've never made $20 million. I'm scared. I don't know if you gave me The Ring if I could carry it and bring it to Ozamorph, or whatever you call it.

I guess I had what you could call an unconventional upbringing.

My music is going to be true. I'm not out to sell records. I'm experiencing something, and it's what I feel.

In every film, whether it's a fictional character or not, you create an idea of the character and for me I always do a bad impersonation to start with.

When I look back I can't believe how my parents managed, but the cliche is true. We didn't have money, but we were rich in so many other ways.

Sometimes a character is really based on research that you do. Other times it's just based on your imagination or perhaps your conversation with the director. Or sometimes all of the above. It depends on the movie and character.

I don't have the slightest desire to speak over my dead brother. It gets on my nerves to always be compared with him. My brother was a magnificent person and an outstanding actor.

In most films - especially in regards to the protagonist - really from the get-go they set up some scenario that endears that character to the audience. Or imbues him with some nobility or heroism or something.

I'm like the kid that crams for tests and never remembers anything.

The expectation is this low, gravelly voice for John, but I went through his early recordings and there were songs in there where the voice was so different, I wasn't even sure if it was him singing, ... So it was interesting to me that we would see him develop the Man in Black sound. I thought it was really important that his voice change as his persona slowly solidified. The music was really the doorway into the character.

When I go out with the ladies, I don't force them to pronounce my name. I tell them I like to go by the nickname of Kitten.

The footage that you're about to watch of China's dog-leather trade is one of the worst things I've ever seen.

I have this horrible sense of humor where I think discomfort is funny - partly because I experience discomfort a lot, and it's a way of laughing at it and getting a release.

How can you work in film and still see the overt racism that exists in film and not just be furious all the time?

I wish I had fair justification for not being as informed as I should be, but I don't.

I'm going to sound a little weird here, but I like to spend a lot of time on my own in the woods. I don't exactly sneak off in the middle of the night, but I like to be in a place where no one can reach me by phone or e-mail.

Once I became a total buffoon, it was so liberating.

I don't think one should be comfortable standing on a stage with people applauding and laughing at every stupid thing you say.

I've been prepping for my role as Medusa.

I don't walk around like I'm a movie star because I don't think of myself as a movie star. People usually don't even notice me.

I think the day that I become comfortable doing interviews and going on talk shows is the day that I don't know what it is to be a human being anymore.

There are kids who get on a BMX bike when they're eight years old and they go, 'Whoa, this is incredible,' and grow up to do extreme sports. It's the same for me with acting.

You're always thinking, What's the next move - the career, the money.

There are certain aspects of acting that I don't like. I'm not a person who loves being on set. I mean, I know people that have their espresso machines in their trailers and they like being in there and they put pictures on walls. But I don't like it. I don't like sitting around.

For me, I'd rather have an intense experience than not.

Getting into the character is difficult and letting go of your life and the things that kind of define you, whatever it is in life that's your daily routine because you sort of find yourself in this other life and that's difficult and the other end is difficult.

We are all animals of this planet. We are all creatures. And nonhuman animals experience pain sensations just like we do. They too are strong, intelligent, industrious, mobile, and evolutional. They too are capable of growth and adaptation. Like us, firsthand foremost, they are earthlings. And like us, they are surviving. Like us they also seek their own comfort rather than discomfort. And like us they express degrees of emotion. In short like us, they are alive.

I've always loved music, but I never really played anything. After 'Walk the Line' and learning to play guitar, and having that sense of performing, I think that certainly opened the door for me, for music.

I always have the fear that, if I don't commit 100 percent to my work, then it's gonna suffer.

I had a really wonderful upbringing. We were a tight family. It was wonderful to grow up with so many siblings. We were all just a year or two apart, and we were always so supportive of each other. I learned everything from my older brother and sister and taught it to my younger sisters.

I don't really make movies because I want to see my face on a billboard or because I want to get good reviews or have a big box office. That doesn't really matter to me at all.

I love having a master. I have no problem serving my director. That's my job. I want to make them happy.

I'm incredibly lazy!

Every movie soaks into you for a certain amount of time.

That to me was really, certainly, the gateway into discovering John, ... I feel I found the speaking voice through the singing voice.

Acting is real important to me. I love it, and it's something I care about.

If you walk into a room and one hundred people say, 'You are a lovely, beautiful person', who isn't going to be affected by that? But you have to tell yourself not to value that. You have to tell yourself - or at least I do - to not become accustomed to hearing applause in any way, because I think that's dangerous.

It's hard for me to put my feelings into words.

It takes nothing away from a human to be kind to an animal.

My dissatisfaction with acting has nothing to do with being uncomfortable or vulnerable or feeling like people are going to criticize me. That's not the problem.

I wouldn't feel satisfied being on set every day doing a romantic comedy - I'd be bored to death.

The reason I keep making movies is I hate the last thing I did. I'm trying to rectify my wrongs.

When we use love and compassion as our guiding principles we can create, develop and implement systems of change that are beneficial to all sentient beings and to the environment.

My significant other right now is myself, which is what happens when you suffer from multiple personality disorder and self-obsession.

I've made up so many stores about my name, I can't remember.

I don't bring my life into a character at all.

As a nation, this is the moment to start seriously investing our time, energy and resources into proven methods of reducing violence, both within our nation as well as internationally. The cost of violence to our culture and our children is simply not sustainable.

You can take that 'I'm an artiste' stuff to the wrong extreme, too.

Is it that your dream is unattainable or is it that you have the wrong dream?

Is it just me or is it getting crazier out there?

I loved hip-hop. The first stuff I heard was Public Enemy, and I couldn't believe it. It was amazing, and I've always loved hip-hop.

I do like to collaborate, and I like hearing other people, and I like how somebody's performance will affect my own.